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THE MAGAZINE

JUNE • 46th Year of Publication

NOVELLA

THE SPINE DIVERS 122 Ray Aldridge

NOVELET

THE STRING

Kathleen Ann Goonan

SHORT STORIES

BLACK WINTER 10 Ellen Gilchrist

SPIRIT GUIDES

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

CRUISING THROUGH
DEUTERONOMY

Jack McDevitt

THESE BEASTS

Tanith Lee

COYOTE STORIES

Charles de Lint

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

Nina Kiriki Hoffman

DEPARTMENTS:

BOOKS 25 Robert K.J. Killheffer

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

Charles de Lint

FILMS:

Kathi Maio

A FLOP ABOUT A FAILURE

A SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK: 1 10 Gregory Benford
THE FOURTH DIMENSION

CARTOONS: JOHN JONIK (37), ARTHUR MASEAR (66), S. HARRIS (109,163), JOSEPH FARRIS (160)
COVER BY RON WALOTSKY FOR "THE SPINE DIVERS"

EDWARD L. FERMAN, Publisher KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH, Editor

CHERYL CASS, Circulation Manager AUDREY FERMAN, Assistant Publisher

ROBIN O^CONNOR, Assistant Editor HARLAN ELLISON, Film Editor

The Magazine of Fantasy A Science Fiction (ISSN 0024-984X}, Volume 88, No. 6, Whole No. 529, June
1995. Published monthly except for a combined October/November issue by Mercury Press, Inc. at $2.75
per copy. Annual subscription $26.00; $31.00 outside of the U.S. (Canadian subscribers: please remit in
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GENERAL OFFICE: 143 CREAM HILL RD., WEST CORNWALL, CT 06796
EDITORIAL OFFICE: PO BOX 1 1526, EUGENE, OR 97440

Editorial

Kristine Kathryn Rusgh

T he reader

responses to my
February query
have come in, and
the responses have prompted two
more editorials. This is the first.

In February, I detailed the re-
sults of the reader survey in the maga-
zine and noted that the readership of
the magazine is aging (along with the
rest of science fiction's readership).
Only 7 percent of our readership is
under 25; most readers are over 35.
This trend disturbs me. In the Febra-
ary editorial, I wrote:

"Some have suggested that this
is because the entire population is
aging. But I think we need to exam-
ine other possiblities. Is sf in a de-
cline, like the western was a few
years back? Are young people not
reading anymore? Or has the litera-
ture of science fiction become more
sophisticated, appealing to the more
mature reader? I would love to get
comments and opinions on this."

I got a lot of comments and opin-
ions, which made for wonderful read-

ing for me. Respondents ranged from
71 years old to 15 years old, and all
had thoughtful things to say. I can't
reprint all of the letters — most go for
two and three pages single spaced —
hut I can share some of the ideas,
opinions and arguments. Since the
correspondents tended to identify
themselves by age or age group, I
decided to divide the responses that
way too. We start with the 25 and
over group.

A number of respondents dis-
cussedlquiteindependently) something
I focussed on in last month's editorial:
adventure. RickNorwood of Mountain
Home, Tennessee, writes, "When I was
a kid, I loved stories of adventure. I
lovedstories about outer space. I wanted
the hero to win.

"Now, at 52, Ipreferstories about
the past. My favorite books are the
sea stories of Patrick O'Brien. But I
still want the hero to win.

"How many adventure stories
does F^SF publish? How many sto-
ries set in outer space? How many
where the hero wins?"

FORTRESS IN THE EYE OF TIME
C. J. Cherryh
Passing the power.

Though C.J. Cherryh has won three Hugo Awards and
written over 40 novels, she may have created her
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Cherryh has carved a name for herself as a "world
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world around a battle beyond time — creating an epic
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newest story ever told. In a cryptic age where only
shattered towers and decaying statues stand, Mauryl,
kingmaker of a thousand years of Men, and his
young creation Tristen, must sow mistrust between
a prince and his father and, in doing so, create a path for
a king to come. In effect, eliminating the old to make way for the new.

No matter what you know of C.J. Cherryh's astonishing career, prepare to make
the ultimate journey into the mind of an author who has become a legend as big as
the hero she creates.

$22.00 U.S./$29.50 Can. • ISBN: 0-06-109295-9 • Hardcover/May

SQUIRE
Peter Telep
A swordid tale.

There is both excitement and apprehension surrounding the
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magical side as he takes the Arthurian legend and molds it
into his own thrilfing saga of love, war and magic. And the
adventures continue in this new trilogy, with Squire's Blood
in September, and Squire’s Honor in January 1996.

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THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT

Robert J. Sawyer

Will the real killer please stand?

What Coma did for Robin Cook, this riveting SF thriller
about a doctor meddling in the after-life could do for
Robert Sawyer. It could turn him into a monster ... seller!
It's no wonder Nancy Kress, Hugo Award-winning author,
says THE TERMINAL EXPERIMENT, "blends high-tech
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The time is the near future. Dr. Peter Hobson has
: created three electronically simulated personalities using
i his advanced theories on immortality and death. But ...

I one of them is a killer! Now it's up to him to determine
' which one of his offspring is evil, all the while dealing
with the complex and twisted environment of a worldwide
computer matrix. The Prix Aurora Award-winning author of Foreigner has created a
complex thriUer that is a high-wire act — without a net!

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MAGIC: THE GATHERING #4
Final Sacrifice

Clayton Emery

The Magic movement moves on!

FINAL SACRIFICE is the fourth book in the amazing Magic:
The Gathering series. The books, based on the mega-popular
card game, have had astounding success. In fact. Arena, the
first in the series, already has nearly 300,000 copies in print!
And judging from the biUion-plus sales of the cards, looks to
keep on leaving the shelves!

FINAL SACRIFICE is an incredibly imaginative tale
of a wizard's apprentice and his bizarre journey with his
extra-spirited sister. And if that's not enough for you, each book comes with a unique
Magic card!

$4.99 U.S./$5.99 Can. • ISBN: 0-06-105420-8
Mass Market/May

fSHarperPrism

An Imprint of HarperPaperbacks

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

Louise Marley of Redmond,
Washington, echoes that argument
in her letter. "I'm the proud parent of
a very gifted eleven-year-old who has
read every Michael Crichton book
(adult version) available since Juias-
sic Park came out. In addition, he
reads many science fiction and fan-
tasy novels, and they have one thing
in common with }P: lots and lots of
adventure.... In your editorial, you
mention that 93 percent of your read-
ership attended college, with more
than a quarter having completed
graduate school. I think it's too much
to ask that a magazine that attracts
and holds that sophisticated reader-
ship could also interest many under-
eighteen-year-olds. Do the sf and fan-
tasy stories that are selling these days
have adventure? Certainly some do,
but the genre has become increas-
ingly sophisticated and challenging,
idea stories rather than thrillers. I'll
bet you don't buy a lot of space opera
these days!"

Edward Nishida-Drake of Simi
Valley, California, is a bit more blunt.
He writes, "Your magazine and al-
most all others in this genre are aimed
at adults. That, in and by itself, is not
bad, for that is where your market
lies. It is, in my opinion, a rather
short-sighted marketing policy. By
aiming your publication at an adult
readership, you deny a younger gen-

eration the pleasures we had growing
up in Science Fiction's golden era."
He challenges the magazine to pub-
lish quality stories aimed at this
younger age group. "Those of us who
have been reading Science Fiction for
a long time will enjoy these stories as
nostalgia and as an added benefit we
will attract the younger readers we
need."

f . Michael Kelberer of Roseville,
Minnesota, also notes the changing
editorial focus of the magazines as a
reason for the change. In his letter he
examined several trends that "have
conspired to reduce the 'sense of
wonder' factor in current SF short
fiction." In addition to what he calls
"the mainstreaming of SF" (which
other respondents discussed above),
he adds two other trends.

First, he writes, "The rate of
change in real-life technology is in-
creasing while the rate of change in
SF technology (sociology, etc) is slow-
ing. The SF trend is toward near-
futures with similar technologies (so-
ciology, human capabilities) and non-
futures (like today except for the main
character's ability to talk to inani-
mate objects, for example). There-
fore the gap between real worlds and
SF worlds is diminishing and with it
the sense of 'wow!'"

He also mentions "the recent
emergence of near-future dystopias

EDITORIAL

(i.e. cyberpunke et. al) as the setting
of choice for much speculative
fiction... fail completely at cultivat-
ing the sense of wonder that made
me a life-long SF reader."

Like J. Michael Kelberer,
Jonathan S. Hudson of La Luz, New
Mexico, makes several different sug-
gestions in his letter. One of them is
this: "Perhaps the change of which
you speak is an unintended, long-
term symptom of the widespread
derision and disdain heaped upon my
head by my contemporaries.... My
acquantances' charges of incipient
idiocy because I was reading that
stupid science fiction junk AGAIN
successfully intimidated me."

Finally, our science columnist,
Gregory Benford, adds a completely
different perspective: "SF became a
huge media phenom through shared
experiences of the future: STAR
TREK, then the continuing family-
like adventures (sons and fathers,
mostly) of STAR WARS. This taught
a generation to seek the 'sci-fi' expe-
rience in this associative way, which
isn't the root experience of reading

books or magazines. So the media
parade missed the written medium.
The hoped-for transference of STAR
TREK book readers to mainline sf
didn't happen.

"This relates to the unusual per-
sistenceofolderwriteisinsf — Heinlein,
Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke. Here, too,
readers prefer to go to the strange future
inthecompanyofsomebodytheyknow;
it's reassuring.

"It suggests that the way to reach
this enormous audience is to find a
shared, quasi-communal vehicle. I
wonder if this is even possible in
magazines, though it might be in
books."

All of these ideas, and the many
more I received, provide great food
for thought. In addition to letters,
correspondents sent articles and sev-
eral book references, all of which I
will follow up on. I think this is an
important topic, and one I will con-
tinue to explore.

Next month, I will share ideas
from readers who identified them-
selves as part of the 25 and younger
age group.

In the ten years since National Book Award Winner Ellen Gilchrist last appeared in
our pages (November, 1985), she has become one of the country’s best loved authors.
Her most recent book. The Age of Miracles, was published this spring by Little/
Brown. She returns to F&SF with a frightening, all too plausible story which explores
the end of the vmrld in a strange new way.

Black Winter

ByEUenGUchrist

I AM WRITING THIS FROM

the cave, grandchild of mine, baby boy I
left behind. If you live, if you are alive,
over there, in Germany, where I pray the
skies are clear. Strange, it began the day you were to be bom. February 27,
1996, as we measured time. Will there be time when you read this? Is Europe
there? Is anybody there?

I must not waste paper. We have ten bank envelopes and the notepad that was
in the car and the grocery bag and The Tulsa World. We will learn to make paper,
ifwesurvive.Wesworethatlastnight, Tannin andl, when we divided up thepaper
that we have. I love you, fames Ingersol Martin. If she really named you that, after
what has happened. If you were bom, if there is a world and you are in it. It is so
dark here. There is hght in the middle of the day for five or six hours sometime.
We have a watch. A Timex I put on for a joke that morning. I never wore a watch.
We almost bought a watch at Saks in Utica Square, also for a joke. We wish we had.
And we wish we had bought the coffee we looked at there. Godiva Coffee,

BLACK WINTER

Hazelnut, not to mention the candy we didn't buy. We might have had a
pound of Godiva chocolates with us instead of the junk we did finally grab,
in that last ten minutes, in the convenience store by the filling station.

We had gone to Tulsa to see Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, which was
playing at Eton Square. I adore Stockard Channing. So does Tannin. Tannin
McCaslin, from Nashville, Tennessee, age twenty-six, your grandmother's
protege and best friend in this her sixtieth year to heaven. lam writing to you,
James Ingersol, because I think you are my best bet to be alive. The other ones
are, or were, in the state of Mississippi. From the one conversation we have
had in the last months, I don't think Mississippi is there anymore.

We still have a small amount of gasoline but we are afraid to use it, even
to keep the battery in the car mnning. It's a terrible problem, trying to decide
what to do about the gasoline. We're in Oklahoma, for God's sake. Surely we
could find some gasoline if we looked for it. Unless it all blew up. We don't
think the clouds look like they came from gasoline fires. They are thick and
nearly cover the sky but have no smell.

We were about five miles from downtown Tulsa. We had stopped to get
gasoline, on our way home from the movie. The sirens were going off
everywhere. They didn't stop and I knew what they were. I had been watching
the news. I knew what was going on in Russia, in North Korea, in Iran, in the
Ukraine. Tannin had been writing all week. He wasn't well-informed. "Go
in there and get some food," I said.

I'll say this for him. He didn't question me. "Get what?" he asked.

"Anything," I answered. "Run."

He ran. He came back in a few minutes with a sack of food. There had
been no one to pay for it. Cars were driving strangely everywhere. I wanted
Tannin to drive but I was behind the wheel. "Get out the map," I said. "Tell
me how to go to the most desolate place outside of town."

"What's happening?"

"I think it's nuclear war."

"Take 1-44. The Cherokee country is as desolate as it gets."

Then I drove. Did I mention the coat? I had just bought a full-length fur
coat on sale at Saks. Tannin had bought some jeans and a summer sweater at

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

The Gap. That is a store we used to have, when Oklahoma was here. Eight
months ago. When you were bom. If you were bom. I'm getting tired. I tire
easily now. There's so little sun. So little food. I'll write more tomorrow.
When there is light.

The sun came out for a while this morning. Tannin thinks the clouds are
growing thinner. I think so too, in the day. In the afternoon it all seems so
hopeless. We think we should go southwest, but in the desert is where we had
the silos for our missiles. It might be worse there. Probably it's the air currents
that matter most. We have drawn what we remember from television
weather maps on the wall of a dry part of the cave. The currents changed all
the time, of course, and the force of the explosions could have caused more
changes. Not to mention the heat. We used to have clinical, rational
discussions about such things. A few months ago. But now we are just trying
to survive. We haven't given up. We just quit pretending to be left-brained.

This morning we had a chicken. Tannin catches them in the woods now
and then. Traps them. There must have been chicken houses around here
because the woods are full of chickens. They have grown very large and are
quite noisy, nesting in the pine trees. It makes us sad to kill them. Also, we
boil the meat until it is almost tasteless. I don't know what all this boiling is
about. Radiation is not bacteria, but we are twentieth-century primitives and
boiling is all we know to do. Tannin thinks we should stay inside as much as
possible and cover our skin when we go out. His father and brother are
physicists at Vanderbilt, or were. We don't talk about our families. We're
going to talk about them, but not yet. But anyway, we boil those chickens
to smithereens.

If we had been exposed to radiation we'd be dead by now. If we were
exposed why would those chickens still be alive ? Here is where we were after
the sirens went off. In a convertible for an hour and forty minutes going east.
Then in a stone church near Lincoln, Arkansas, for ten days. Then in the car
for an hour. Then we were in the cave. But I need to go back to the beginning.

Tannin threw the sack of groceries in the car and I started driving. Most
of the other cars had stopped. People were running into steel buildings. We
drove 1-44 to the Cherokee Turnpike. By then the radio stations were all

BLACK WINTER

Static. We had been listening to NPR. I thought that meant that New York
and the east coast had been hit. There was never any reception after the sirens
went off. Only static. "Don't drive too fast," was the only thing Tannin said.
"We don't want to use up all the gas."

"Where should we go?"

"I don't know."

"Who is bombing us?"

"I don't know. North Korea. China."

"If we aren't at ground zero we want to get away from the prevailing
winds. I think south is the best way to go."

"The turnpike only goes one way."

"We should find shelter, Rhoda. We shouldn't be in a convertible."

"I want to find a side road and head for the woods. There will be rioting.
I don't want to be where people are."

"We'll be in Siloam Springs pretty soon. We could go to that park by Lake
Wedington."

"We need to find a building."

"It might be too late for that."

"We didn't see a burst of light."

"Is this happening?"

"Just drive the car. Find us a place to hide."

Forty minutes later we were on a back road leading to Lincoln, Arkansas.
It was a road I knew from when I had a hippie boyfriend. He had had friends
who built themselves a sod house on this road.

The skies were clouding up. Nuclear fallout? We didn't know. Every-
thing was ominous now. There were no cars anywhere. Where had all the
people gone? Why were no cars on the roads? What had they seen on television
that had made the houses and the roads so still?

Seven miles down county road 385 we found a stone church and decided
to take shelter there. We pulled up to the door and unloaded part of our
supplies and went inside and lay down on the floor.

"Is this happening?"

"Yes."

"Will we die? Are we going to die?"

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

"Maybe not."

"If we're radiated our skin will fall off. There will be holes in our skin."

"We didn't see anything. We didn't see the flash. Maybe it's just the east
coast. It will take a while for the radiation to get here."

"It will blow here. It will blow everywhere. Where are all the people,
Tannin? Why weren't there any cars on the roads?"

"They had television. They knew what to do."

"Our radio went out. Why would television stations be operating?"

"I don't know. I'm just guessing. We were right to leave the towns. There
will be rioting. We have food and they will want it." I moved closer to him.
He put his arms around me and we lay like that and talked and slept.

Here is what we had with us at that point. The car, with a tool kit and
a small first aid kit. A waterproof car cover. A spare tire. Maps. Two sacks full
of crackers and candy bars and beef jerky. Three quarters of a tank of 89 octane
gasoline. A bottle of Evian. T en Cokes. My new fur coat. The clothes we were
wearing. Tannin's new sweater and jeans. A pair of running shoes and a pair
of socks I had in the trunk of the car.

"We were right to leave Tulsa," we both kept saying. We knew it was
true. There had been riots in cities all year. Ever since President Clinton was
killed the dispossessed had rioted everywhere. I counted the trouble from the
day the doctor killed forty people in the mosque on the West Bank, in the
occupied territories, in Israel, at dawn. It had spread all over the world, in the
near east, in South America, in Africa, in the United States. But why am I
telling you this. If Germany survived you know all this. If this gets to you. If
we ever get out of here. If you are there.

We don't know what to do. We don't know if we should go or stay. Still,
the chickens are alive. They have grown very long tails, but Tannin says it's
just because they are nesting in the trees and are free. They look like long-
haired hippies. I think we should stop eating them. The meat is tasteless after
it is boiled. There are roots and berries and nuts in the woods. But we are
running out of other things to eat.

I will try to describe the darkness. It is like early November or March.
There aren't clouds. It is all one cloud. From horizon to horizon. No break for
ten days now. No wind. Tannin says that is good. He has started to use his left
brain. So have I. It's very cold in the left brain and makes me click my teeth

BLACK WINTER

together when I try as hard as I can to remember every practical and scientific
thing I ever learned.

Three days of darkness have passed. We have kept track of every time the
watch passes twelve. Now, finally, at two in the afternoon the sky has
lightened up a bit to the south and west. There are pale shadows on the forest
floor. We will mark the length of the shadow of the nearest tree. We will mark
it each afternoon at two. Tannin is wearing a hooded garment made of the
microfiber car cover and with a huge cover on his head. I don't think it makes
any difference. I'm not sure, but I think radiation can go through anything,
even steel. I think lead absorbs it but we don't have any lead except a little bit
in some pencils and I'm not sure that's lead. I think it is against the law to put
lead in pencils because kids chew on them in school.

Anyway, he puts on all this stuff and goes out to mark the shadow. He
won't let me do it. I'm thirty years older than he is. I should be the one to take
the chances.

Every day now the sunlight lasts longer. The cloud seems to be moving
to the east and north. It has not rained and Tannin says that is good as the
gamma particles will rain down on us and they are what carries the radiation.

I don't know what to think. I spend hours looking at my skin waiting for
it to start falling off. It hasn't yet. We couldn't be this lucky, could we? Could
we have lucked into being alive? It was totally nuts to drive that car for two
hours and yet, here we are. With some food and a cave and a car and my fur
coat and the woods full of living chickens.

We have a horse. Or, he has us. He came walking up wearing a tom gray
horse blanket. We took it off of him and tried to mend it but we don't have
a needle. It reminded me to find a needle if we ever go anywhere, or else learn
how to make one out of bone. Our clothes won't last forever. Even the fur coat,
which we take turns wearing at night or sometimes use for a blanket. That
fur coat cheers us up. In the first place it is warm. In the second place I'll never
have to pay for it. Mainly it makes us remember we could have had a pound
of Godiva chocolate and a box of Godiva coffee if we had bought it. What I
would really like is a baked potato and a steak. A bottle of orange juice. And
I wouldn't mind some whiskey. I would really like some whiskey.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

We make tea with different things we find. We are going to make some
dishes soon. We might build a kiln if we decide to stay here. It's hard deciding
what to do. I would take hikes to find out what's around here but Tannin
doesn't think we should go outside unless we have to. He is painting a mural
on the wall. It is a picture of us going to the movies. Sitting in seats eating
popcorn and drinking Cokes and watching a screen. On the screen he drew
the volcano from the movie we were seeing in Tulsa that afternoon. Stockard
Channing in Pom Baboons Adoring the Sun, by John Guare.

The horse doesn't do anything. He just hangs around. He has a halter on
his face and I wanted to take that off too but Tannin said to leave it on. He is
probably used to it and he has had enough changes in his life. I can't believe
we don't go and see who is alive. What are we afraid of? What is there left to
fear?

E HAVE aspirin, hydrogen peroxide, merthiolate, anti-
biotic cream, sunscreen lotion, toothpaste, toothbrushes,
shampoo. We found a canoe shop on the river ten miles
from here. We had been searching for food. The thought
of being in the cave all winter with nothing to eat scared us so much we had
taken the car to look for food. We followed the road along the river and found
the shop. There was a store with nothing touched. We almost killed ourselves
eating things. There was sugar and honey and cookies and canned drinks and
bottled water. There is enough stuff to take care of us for months. We packed
everything we could into the car. Then we put a trailer hitch on the back of
the car and loaded a canoe with the rest of the food and supplies and pulled
the canoe back to the cave. We have a store of outboard motor oil.

We do not know where the people had gone. Why didn't they come back
for the food? We will go back later and make sure there is nothing there that
we can use.

Also, there were some guns. We took most of them and all the ammu-
nition. We don't want anyone else to get hold of them.

We have a visitor. A biology teacher from Minnesota. He came on a
motorcycle. His name is Mort Ricardo. He has books with him.

"What do you know?" we asked him.

"The east coast is gone, " he answered. "And the south. People are living

BLACK WINTER

in camps. There is nothing now, no government, no communication. You're
lucky you're way out here."

"How did you find us?"

"I'm trying to go to the equator."

He is six feet three inches tall. He has brown hair and blue eyes. He has
with him the King James Version of the Bible, The Collected Works of
William Shakespeare, a calender of Florentine art. Tannin wept when he
looked at it. It's the first time he's cried since this happened. He said it was
because his mother took him to Florence when he was a child. As I said, we
never talk about our families.

Mort has The Orestia by Aeschylus and a small anthology of British Poetry
of the 1 8 th, ISHh, and 20th centuries. He took what would fit in his saddlebags. He
has dried food andlotsofBiccigarettelighters.Hesaysitis going to bealong winter.
His family was in Atlanta when it happened. He got on his bike and headed south.
He is going to the equator with the books. There are other things. A medical
textbook, an anatomy, a book of physics, an atlas. He thinks Europe is still there
and maybe parts of central and south America. He is trying to figure out when it
will be safe to cross Texas. He thinks he can find gasoline for a while, then he will
walk the rest of the way. He's asleep now. He has talked to a lot of people between
here and Minnesota. He says they are mostly holed up waiting to see what
happens. He said there isn't goiirgto be any more food in North America. Nextyear
he says there probably won't be any.

Here is part of one of Mort's books. "The detonation of a nuclear weapon
near the Earth's surface raises enormous quantities of dust into the atmo-
sphere and causes deadly radioactive fallout. Nuclear fission of plutonium
(and uranium), the process that triggers all nuclear explosions, creates dozens
of unstable atomic nuclei that decay over periods of hours to years into more
stable forms. In the act of decaying, the unstable nuclei release alpha, beta,
and gamma radiation. Of these, the gamma rays — a very energetic but
invisible form of light — are the most dangerous. Typically, gamma rays can
penetrate a foot of concrete, one or two feet of dirt, or two or three feet of
water. They come from two principal sources: the initial 'prompt' gamma
rays produced during the nuclear explosion itself, and the 'delayed' gamma
rays emitted during the radioactive decay of residual unstable chemical elements

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

synthesized in the explosion. The prompt gammas irradiate the region already
subject to intense thermal radiation and blast effects. For this reason, their lethal
effects are comparatively unimportant. Dead is dead; it doesn't matter if those
killed by faUing buildings or burned to death are also fried by gamma rays.

"The delayed gammas, however, are emitted by debris that can be carried
by winds hundreds or thousands of miles from the explosion site before
falling out or raining out of the air. The radioactive elements involved tend
to condense onto dust particles. In the rising fireball of a surface nuclear
detonation, the intimate mixing of surface particles swept into the fireball
with the newly generated radioactive elements scrubs most of the radioactiv-
ity out of the air and onto the dust. Hence the radioactivity is distributed over
a large area as the dust settles downwind of the detonation...." (Page 52, A
Path Where No Man Thought.)

"Where were the explosions?" we had asked him. "Do you know what
cities were hit?"

"The east coast. Nashville, Atlanta, North Carolina, Cincinnati," he
kept on naming them. I think half of it was a guess. There has been mist here
for several days now. Thick dark mist.

We are staying in the cave.

"If all the explosions were east of the Mississippi I think we have a
chance," Tannin said.

"Then why is it so dark here?"

"It's lighter than it was. It was worse a few months ago."

"We were in a stone church, then in this cave," I told Mort. "I think we
have a chance, don't you ? If we had radiation poisoning we'd be sick by now. "

"How thick were the walls of the church?"

"I'm not sure. Pretty thick."

"I think you lucked up so far." Mort put his chin on his hand. He looked
from Tannin to me and back again. Then he sat up very straight. "You can go
with me if you like," he said. "Just because it's been safe here doesn't mean
it will stay that way."

"Why are you going to the equator? Tell us exactly why again."

"Because even a nuclear war can't push the earth off its axis. It will get
colder and colder in this hemisphere. If life continues it will be near the
equator. I want to see some children before I die."

BLACK WINTER

We have decided to go with Mort. We will pull the motorcycle behind the
car on a trailer for the canoe. We will drive as far as we can. Then we will throw
away everything but books and the needle and food and walk. Anything is
better than staying here waiting for the chickens to start keeling over.

We will leave in ten days. I am starting to abandon things, our map on
the wall, our calender of days, our shadow marks outside the cave. I don't
know what to do about the horse. The leaves on the trees are growing sparse.
Vegetation is looking more like something in Alaska than Arkansas in late
summer. And it is cold.

The more I think about the equator the better I like the idea. We have the
guns if we need them. I might go out and shoot one one day soon, fust to make
sure I know how. We have three rifles and seven handguns. We will only be
able to keep this arsenal as long as we find gasoline. Mort says we will siphon
it from abandoned cars or get it from farm supplies. He says all farms have
tanks of gasoline and we will find some in Texas. There is a town called
Appleton a few miles from here. I want to drive through that way and buy
some apples if they have any left. It was just a tiny little town with orchards
all around it. Tannin says he doesn't want to see orchards. He says there is a
chance they will look like late Van Gogh and scare us all to death.

After we go through Texas we will come to the Atlantic Ocean. No
matter what has happened the ocean will look like life and peace and purity.
All my life I have loved the ocean. And all bodies of water. I want to dress in
white for this journey. If I had a long white blanket I would make a pilgrim's
robe of it. This is a pilgrimage, I guess.

October 30, 1996: Six Tibetan monks are here. They came walking down the
path at noon yesterday, walking toward us as if they knew where they were going.
They have been in Fayetteville and brought us news from there. They had gone
there in late February to put on an exhibition of temple dances. It was part of a one
hundred and ten city show to raise money for their new monastery in India. They
are from Drepung Monastery in Lhasa which was destroyed in 1959 by the
Chinese Communists. Their leaderis GangkarTulku, recognized from childhood
as the reincarnation of a high lama from Eastern Tibet. Gangkar speaks English,
as does his second in command, BhagangTulku, also a high reincarnate lama. The
others were all bom in India after 1959.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

Tannin and I were not surprised to see them. Lamas have come to
Fayetteville before. There are several psychiatrists there who visit back and
forth in India and Tibet. One of them had prayer flags flying in his yard and
I saw them every day when I would ride my bike to the park in nice weather.

As soon as we saw them we went down the path to greet them. They were
still wearing their red and saffron robes and sandals although they were also
wearing large woolen shawls and warm hats and gloves. "How did you find
us?" Tannin asked

"We asked where there were caves? We asked a geologist at the University.
He drewus maps. We were lookingforaplace to begin a monastery. Are there other
caves nearby that you have found?" They were standing in a circle now.

"Come inside, " I said. "Have tea with us. We have tea we found in a canoe
shop. We don't like to stay outside unless it's necessary. Come in. Tell us
about the town."

"There was much rioting and disorder. People were living in the
basements of buildings on the campus, afraid to go outside. We went with the
people we were staying with, a doctor and his wife, to live in the basement
of the physical science building. Some people with guns guarded the doors.
The mayor and the head of the university were there with their families. The
doctor who was our host went out each day to the hospital to care for people.
There were many suicides, all during a week when the earth was dark."

"What did you hear of the rest of the United States?"

"There are people in the west who survived. Ham radio operators have
sent messages. There is not much left east of the Mississippi. Not many cities
left."

"What of the radiation clouds?" Mort asked. "Do you have information
about them?"

"The worst went north-north-east, but there has been sickness many
places. No one has invaded the country. There are still missiles in silos that
could be sent against invaders. They say the nuclear submarines are still
mnning. The NATO commanders command them now. The headquarters
are in France. This is the news we heard."

"Why did you leave?"

"It was time for us to go and be alone. We have much to meditate upon."

"Stay with us," we said, almost in a breath. "There is food here. Did you
bring food?"

BLACK WINTER

"We have flour and oil. We will make bread for you in our skillet." One
of the young monks pulled a copper skillet out from the folds of his robe. It
was about six inches across, with a steel handle. I imagined the sweet flat
bread being lifted from it. My heart went crazy at the thought of bread.

We sat in a circle and talked for many hours. Mort told them we were
going to the equator. They listened very intently to all we told them.

"We're going to Mayan country, " I put in. "The Mayans might be cousins
of yours." I thought suddenly of my cousins. Of my family. It is not always
possible to keep from thinking about them. Jimmy, Teddy, Malcolm, Little
Rhoda, the names rang in my head.

"I will tell you a story," Gangkar Tulku said, as if he were reading my
mind. He looked directly at me and stood up and began to play little cymbals
on his fingers. "Once, long ago, mankind lived on another planet. On that
planet he did not need to eat meat or vegetables. When he needed nourish-
ment he looked up into the stars and the starlight fed him. At that time we
were rainbows and could travel any distance in a few iseconds. Some of us
came to earth and saw the other creatures here eating and drinking meat and
vegetables and we ate and drank with them to be polite. Because of this we
became earthbound. Now only our minds are rainbows. Now our bodies
cannot travel in the ether. Still, at DrepungLoselingMonastery we remember
rainbow travel and put on our rainbow costumes and dance for one another
and are not sad. How happy we are that our minds are still free to travel and
tell each other stories."

It dried my tears to hear Gangkar's story. Perhaps my children and
grandchildren are rainbows now. Perhaps the end was swift, unexpected,
clean. Perhaps they live. No, they do not live. I must not think like that.

The monks have putabeautiful cloth painting of their monastery on ourwall.
It is painted on the lightest silk imaginable, but it is very strong. Gangkar showed
me the paths that led from one part of tlie monastery to another. There had been
seven to ten thousand monks there before the Chinese came.

They kneel in prayer for many hours each day. They are very careful of
everything they eat, thanking and praising whatever gave up its life to feed
them. I don!t know what they think about peanut butter Nabs. That's a lot
of different ingredients.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

Tannin and I kneel with them as long as our knees can stand it. Mort hkes
them. He thinks it is good karma that they have shown up hut he won't kneel with
them. He has been busy with his instruments measuring the slant and amount of
sunhght and monitoring the direction of the winds. He has several notebooks full
of scientific data. We gave him one of the ones we found in the canoe shop.

Mort wants to take a trip to Fayetteville before we start for the equator
but Tannin and I are afraid to. It was our home. I can't stand to see it ruined.
I asked Gangkar and Bhagang about the children of Fayetteville. They said
most of them have been gathered into the basements of the thickest buildings
and are not allowed to go outside for anything.

"What do they do?"

"They play and study. They have an orchestra and put on plays and
concerts. They are heavily guarded at all times."

I thought of the children I knew there who were especially dear to me.
I thought of three children who were caught up in a terrible divorce on the day
the nuclear devices ruined the world. Now the divorce would not matter to
anyone. It would never come to court. They would never have to choose
between their mother and their father.

Last night Mort spread out all his charts and talked to Gangkar and
Bhagang about his theories. About atmospheric science and the destmction
of ozone and how he thought the only place it would be warm enough to grow
food would be near the equator.

I told them about the Mayan mins in Mexico and Belize and how much
they resembled the painting they showed us of their monastery.

"In short, " Mort said. "Tannin and Rhoda and I would like you to go with
us if you want to go. We will take the vehicles as long as the gasoline lasts.
I think I can convert some of the motor oil but that will be a last resort. We
can pull a trailer with supplies and any of you who won't fit into the vehicle.
We will have to walk sooner or later but perhaps we will be in south Texas
or Mexico by then."

"There's no point in staying here," Tannin added. "These woods are
going to die."

"It will be an adventure," I put in. "We all have good walking shoes. I'm
not worried about gasoline. As long as we are moving in the right direction.

BLACK WINTER

We are going to the sun. That's how I look at it. Nine baboons searching for
the sun. We want you with us if you will go."

That night the monks chanted for many hours. Then they had a long
debate that lasted almost xmtil dawn. They were in the front of the cave. I
could have found a quiet place to sleep but I stayed awake listening to them.

At last they slept. In the morning, after they had gone outside and
relieved themselves and boiled water for tea and drank tea and chanted for
another two hours and then argued again, Gangkar came to us and said they
had decided to accompany us to the equator.

"We have chanted away our hindrances," he began. "We see the joy in
this new beginning. We embrace your journey and humbly offer ourselves as
your companions. Only Bhagang is worried about your horse. What will you
do with your horse? He cannot ride in the vehicles and if we leave him here
he will perish without company. Have you thought of this?"

"We will drive slowly enough so that he can walk or run beside us,"
Tannin said.

"It will use too much gasoline," Mort answered.

"You can go ahead with the vehicle and we will follow at the pace of the
horse," I suggested. We talked about this and Mort calculated the amount of
gasoline it would take to drive forty miles an hour as opposed to fifty or thirty
or sixty and we agreed that would be our plan.

"He is eating the grass," I added. "As long as he is alive we are not in a
radiation zone. He will be our canary." The monks looked from one to
another and smiled. I guess it amused them that I had to have an excuse to
love a horse.

We have made our plans to leave. We will follow whatever roads we can
down into Texas and Mexico. Then to Central America. Every two hundred
miles we will have a meeting and re-think our plans.

"We will take the guns," Tannin told Gangkar. "We have rifles and
pistols that we found in the canoe shop. I know this is against your religion
so I wanted to warn you about it."

"Take what you need." Gangkar answered him. "If they become too
heavy you may wish to stop carrying them."

FANTASY 8). SCIENCE FICTION

We leave tomorrow. Tonight the monks performed their dances for us.
The same dances they have performed in cities all over the world. They put
on their costumes and danced:

THE INVOCATION OF THE FORCES OF GOODNESS
then,

THE DANCE OF THE RAINBOW BEINGS
then,

THE INQUIRING AND PROVOKING MIND IS THE BASIS OF ALL
ENLIGHTENMENT
then,

THE WORLD OF CONFLICT AND SUFFERING BECOMES THE
CIRCLE OF ECSTASY
then,

THE ECHO OF WISDOM
then,

AN AUSPICIOUS CONCLUDING SONG FOR WORLD PEACE

It was very beautiful although I fell asleep several times during the
chanting. Afterward I lay down on my soft bed that Tannin made for me from
rushes and moss and canoe rugs and slept on it for the last time. I dreamed all
night of rainbow people. I named them all the names of the people east of the
Mississippi River whom I had loved. Mother, father, sister, brother, child,
friend. Then I got up to finish this and wrap it in plastic and leave it here for
you. Whoever you will be. It doesn't matter to me anymore who you will be.
Undifferentiated consciousness. That's what I'm striving for. We must finish
packing now. We must be moving on.

Books

ROBERT K.J. KILLHEFFER

R6sum6 with Monsters by Wil-
liam Browning Spencer, The Perma-
nent Press, 212pp, $22.00 (The Per-
manent Press, Noyac Road, Sag Har-
bor, NY 11963)

The Unnatural by David Prill,
St. Martin's Press, 256pp, $21.00

VERY age devel-
ops its own distinc-
tive figure of vil-
lainy . In Dickens's
time it was the wealthy miser, mak-
ing life miserable for honest citizens
and common workingfolk. Some de-
cades later foreigners assumed the
miser's role; the Yellow Peril threat-
ened comfortable European civiliza-
tion, and bellicose Martians burned
London before lowly bacteria foiled
their invasion. Later still it was the
enemy within, body-snatchers and
puppet masters who symbolized
fears of brainwashing and political
treachery. In today's post-industrial,
post-colonial, post-cold-war world,
another threat has moved to the
forefront (and no, I don't mean serial

killers). The faceless, impersonal
Corporation now frequently wears
the black hat — bringing villainy
back again to the miser, in a way.

Nowhere in literature is this
clearer than in science fiction and
fantasy. William Gibson and his imi-
tators give us dark futures dominated
by unscmpulous megacorporations,
companies so large and diversified
they wield more power than nations
(and wield it far less humanely, in
most cases). Megacorps dominate
space and press Native Americans
into bonded servitude in Jack Dann
and Jack C. Haldeman II's High Steel.
An opportunistic capitalist and his
powerful corporation nearly ensure
the destruction of the planet in John
Barnes's Mother of Storms. In sf, cor-
porations are most often the enemies
of individual freedom, of the envi-
ronment, of privacy, of decency and
humanity and fair play. (I should
mention, though, Poul Anderson's
Harvest of Stars as a significant ex-
ception; his Fireball Enterprises is
the world's greatest hope, a friendly
meritocracy governed by the enlight-

FANTASY ft. SCIENCE FICTION

ened dictatorship of its founder,
Anson Guthrie — but I think Fireball
and the naive laissez-faire capitalist
ideal it embodies is one of the things
that gives Harvest of Stars its oddly
retro feel.)

It's not hard to understand why
corporations get such a bad rap —
they're pretty easy to hate, with their
stuffy conformist culture and their
ruthless pursuit of their own self-
interest. Most anyone who's worked
for a large company has felt a sense of
powerlessness in the face of a vast
inhuman force arrayed against
them...

. . .but few of us have recognized
what the hero of William Browning
Spencer's latest novel, Rdsum6 with
Monsters, sees: that many corpora-
tions are in fact intmsions into our
world of Lovecraftian monsters from
Beyond, furthering the unspeakable
ends of fearsome Cthulhu, his dread
messenger Nyarlathotep, and other
horrors from the Outer Dark.

Philip Kenan, "a middle-aged,
lovesick, failed novelist and near-
obsolete typesetter, " works the night
shift at Ralph's One-Day Resumes.
He's come to Austin, Texas, follow-
ing his former girlfriend, Amelia,
hoping to win her back, but he's
haunted by his memories of "the
doom that came to MicroMeg,"
where he and Amelia once worked.

That doom, in Philip's recollection,
involved "the ancient, implacable
curse" of the Great Old Ones. Trouble
is, no one else remembers it that way,
least of all Amelia, who thinks
Philip's novel (which, coincidentally,
focuses on Lovecraftian themes) has
seeped into his real life, firing an
overactive imagination.

At first Spencer's blend of cos-
mic horror and office banality seems
purely comic (if on the black side), as
Philip maintains his vigilance for
signs of the minions of Cthulhu at
Ralph's("thebathroom. . .whilecrypt-
like and dank, contained no hideous
disorienting graffiti from mad
Alhazred's Necronomicon " ) amid of-
fice scenes only slightly exaggerated
for effect: "A paste-up artist was sob-
bing while a secretary shrieked on
one of the phone lines." He contin-
ues to plug away at his novel, and
calls Amelia as often as she'll let him
(once a week). Early on he gets him-
self a friendly therapist who, when
he blurts out his fears of "'hideous
cone-shaped creatures from outer
space,"' comments blithely, '"You are
going to be an interesting chent.'"

Spencer delights in satirizing the
casual malevolence of middle-man-
agers and small business owners, the
inexplicable strangeness of co- work-
ers, the laughable idiosyncrasies of
office life. "Offices were random

BOOKS

collections of people," he writes,
"washed aground on islands of lim-
ited resources, battling for suste-
nance. Philip had seen grown men
wrestle over a stapler." Philip's pay-
checks come with offensive little
motivational pamphlets such as
"Maintaining a Positive Attitude,"
"Be a Team Player," and "You Mat-
ter!" (which exhorts its readers that,
while they may be rather insignifi-
cant themselves, their "labor can
benefit someone who is, in fact, genu-
ineiy important"). He recalls the bore-
dom of his long string of jobs, from
copy shops to insurance companies
to temp assignments, where he took
on "tasks of such stupefying tedium
that the regular employees could not
be coerced into performing them even
under threat of being fired." A few
passages make it clear that Resumi
with Monsters takes a rather dim
view of the workplace,- but who
among us has never worked with
someone like old Mrs. Meadows,
"who believed that her co-worker, an
equally ancient woman, plotted
against her and slept with the boss" ?

There's even a neat little capsule
spoof of The Bridges of Madison
County. Philip receives an insipid
bestseller from his mother — titled A
Wind Through My Heart, but its true
identity is never in doubt — which of
course sends the frustrated author

further into despair, realizing that
his own book ("probably half a mil-
lion words and its vision was bleak")
has little hope in a market so taken
with such tripe.

But amidst all the humor a more
serious thread runs. Philip's therapy
uncovers several dark episodes of his
past: disturbing sexual advances from a
man who'd hired him to mow his lawn,
the accidental overdose death of his
wife (and the unhappiness of the mar-
riage which preceded it), and worst of
all his memories of his father, beaten
down by the frustrations of a dead-end
career, drunk and abusive, who killed
himself when Philip was still a boy.
The more we learn the more Philip's
monsters seem to be delusions, sym-
bols of his encroaching mid-life crisis,
figures of his lingering childhood guilt
— and the more his negative attitude
toward work begins to look like a re-
sponse based on his father's complaints
about "the System" that eventually
killed him. (Philip frequently equates
"the System" with Yog-Sothoth and
other horrors.) In fact until the very
end of the book we never know for
certain whether the monsters really
exist or not.

And yet, even as these more se-
rious aspects of the book deepen,
RSsumS with Monsters never loses its
bleakly humorous edge. It's hard to say
exactly how a novel about a man's mid-

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

life despair can be funny,- the juxta-
position of workplace ennui and
Lovecraftianhoiiorscertainlypioduces
a pervasive sardonic tone, but even the
scenes that aren't played for satirical
laughs have a kind of exaggerated emo-
tional quality (like that of Lovecraft's
own fiction) that adds a note of grim
humor to even the darker scenes. The
motivation pamphlets conjure a "black
miasma of despair" in Philip, which
makes it hard to take more serious
moments entirely seriously, as when
he thinks about his love for Amelia:
"There was no comfort in the state-
ment, which was, in tmth, only an
acknowledgement of the increasing
scope of his dread." Something about
the term "dread" seems tobelongmore
comfortably to the world of Cthulhu
than that of Ralph's One-Day Resumes;
all of Philip's emotions have that height-
ened, almost hysterical aura.

This tension between the seri-
ous undercurrents of the story and its
comic "high-concept" surface — an
office love story with Cthulhu, it's
Desk Set meets The Shadow Out of
Time — might have worked against
the book in the long run, but when
we finally get to see Philip's memo-
ries of what happened at MicroMeg,
Spencer works a narrative magic that
makes the inclusion of Lovecraftian
monsters more than a mere gimmick
(entertaining though it is). MicroMeg

is a nightmare of the worst in corpo-
rate culture, where the real horrors of
office life come to seem far more
terrifying than the slithering ten-
ucled things from Beyond. It's a place
of totalitarian security measures and
bad cafeteria food, a smarmy gung-ho
office newsletter and mountains of
unnecessary paperwork. The most
egregious example of MicroMeg's
corporate mentality, the time ac-
countability tables (on which em-
ployees are required to record their
activities for each six-minute inter-
val during the day), isn't so very far
from the extremes to which some
real-world corporations still go (urine
test, anyone?). By the time Philip
uncovers the unholy rites on which
the corporation is founded, it's al-
most a relief, a more palpable and
therefore tolerable horror after the
soul-numbing impersonality of the
MicroMeg daily grind, which makes
it all the easier for us to see how
Philip might have deluded himself
into concocting monsters rather than
face more years at the company.

Back in Austin, Philip shares the
reader's feeling. "Life had occasion-
ally seemed hopeless when vast,
malignant creatures were manipu-
lating humanity for their own
inscmtable purposes, "he muses, "but
the monsters now seemed trumped
by the unbearable weight of daily j

BOOKS

existence. Reality's bored visage...
this was more dreadful than the star-
shaped face of Cthulhu himself."
That's when he determines to brave
the corporate horrors and rescue
Amelia from the clutches of the new
company she's taken a job with.

If there's any significant prob-
lem with this disturbing and delight-
ful book it's here toward the end.
Spencer leaves the darker side of the
story — Philip's upsetting past —
behind; the tone of the later chapters
remains resolutely light, though they
aren't nearly as funny as the earlier
parts of the book. (This I think is a
common difficulty with humorous
novels, and movies and plays for that
matter — when it comes time to
wrap up the plot and tie up the many
loose ends, it's hard to keep the jokes
running. ) Philip's problems are swept
away by a pair of events which I
won't detail here, for fear of giving
everything away, but I will say that a
happy ending which never seems to
address the very serious roots of
Philip's anomie feels a tad hollow.

But this is a minor complaint in
the scheme of things. Read R6sumi
with Monsters for its rare and skillful
blend of satire and seriousness, and
for the many precious moments of
precise observation that give
Spencer's work its particular power;
when Philip, recalling a scene from

his past, thinks, "This may have been
one of those details created by a
memory more in love with aptness
than with accuracy," we can see the
acumen Spencer brings to this tale of
monsters and bosses (monstrous
bosses?) which might otherwise have
amounted to little more than an
amusing extended joke.

Read with Monsters and

see if you don't start checking the
bathrooms at your office for "hid-
eous disorienting graffiti" and other
signs of the presence of the Old Ones.
If there's one thing Spencer makes
plain, it's that if Azathoth and other
Lovecraftian horrors do intmde into
our plane of existence, they're prob-
ably handing out paychecks.

David Prill's first novel. The
Unnatural, takes on a similar theme
by adopting an equally bizarre
premise. There are no corporations
per se here standing in for the evils of
the modem world (though the corpo-
rate empire of the midget Drabford
Brothers does smack of MicroMeg
here and there), but young Andy Arch-
way gets caught between the pull of
his own private dreams and the pres-
sure of the Big Time and, like Philip,
must find a way to navigate past the
Scylla and Charybdis of the System
to find some measure of happiness.

If this were actually a baseball

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

novel, Andy would have a fiery
fastball and an unhittable curve,
honed by years of practice out back of
the bam. It would be the classic tale
of a young talent brought up too soon
to the majors, where he finds that the
pleasures of baseball — the reason he
started playing in the first place —
are quickly overwhelmed by the pres-
sures of fame, politics, and money of
the professional game.

But it's not a baseball novel.
Andy 's got a farm-fresh, home-brewed
talent all right, but his playing field is
the embalming table, and his tools
are pumps and trocar rather than ball
and mitt. In Prill's odd world, em-
balming occupies a place in Ameri-
can culture akin to that of major
league sports. Kids grow up dreaming
of contracts with big undertaking
firms such as the Drabfords' con-
glomerate or their chief rival, P.T.
Sunnyside. They collect pulp maga-
zines such as Respectful Casket
Tales. They spend summers at em-
balming camp. Scouts from the big
firms prowl the byways of the nation
searching for untapped talent. It's
about the strangest "alternate" world
I've ever encountered, particularly
because so little else is changed, and
the embalmingmania fits in so well. . .

Prill wastes no time in letting us
know we're no longer in Kansas. (In
fact, we're in Golbyville, Minnesota,

Andy's home town, but it's not the
Minnesota we know.) He offers us
first a note "About the Record," in-
troducing us to the legend that is
Janus P. Mordecai, holder of the world
embalming record, having tended to
1, 769 corpses in the "season" of 1 942.
This is the man Andy Archway grows
up idolizing, and when he chances to
meet the once great man at the Min-
nesota State Fair (Mordecai now per-
forms on-the-spot embalming as a
sideshow act), all he can think to say
is, '"I'm going to break your record!"'
And so his dream is bom.

Years later Andy's still on his
parents' farm, where he practices his
art in a shed, when Wallace "Wake"
Wakefield, talent scout for P.T.
Sunnyside, happens by. Andy's no
garden-variety embalmer, as Wake
quickly leams; he sets his corpses up
in imaginative dioramas depicting
the deceased engaged in some favor-
ite activity from life. Wake sees the
kid's promise immediately, and signs
him to a contract, including a schol-
arship to The Thomas Holmes Uni-
versity of Embalming and Funerary
Practices. Andy's on his way.

But Andy begins to encounter
problems right away. He's shocked
to find that his creative layouts are
received with horror and disdain by
his casketing class, that to succeed
he'll have to stifle his natural talents

BOOKS

and practice the rigid, uninteresting
accepted methods. (It's a great mo-
ment when, seeing one student's de-
sign after another looking so similar,
Andy's first thought is "Plagiarism! ")
School is redeemed for Andy, though,
when he tries out for the varsity
embalming team, where he quickly
demonstrates his ability and helps
lead the team to a championship.
The coach's pep talks are priceless:
"'It's one thing to embalm in the
privacy of your own office or home,"'
he tells his players, "'but when you've
got five thousand fans screaming at
the top of their lungs and you see the
clock ticking down, three, two, one,
why by God then you find out if
you've got guts in your belly or just
sawdust.'"

Andy spends the summer in-
terning at P.T. Sunnyside's Califor-
nia headquarters, working on Heaven
Hill, a sort of theme-park necropolis
Sunnyside has under construction
(the deceased can be interred in west-
ern-style Frontiersville, the chrome
and glitter Futureville, or the anti-
quated pomp of Egyptville).
Sunnyside seems more like Andy's
sort of place. Heaven Hill like his
own dioramas writ large, and P.T.
himself is an amiable sort who takes
great interest in Andy's ideas. If he
can just get through the next year at
Holmes U., it seems he'll be able to

Congratulations to our
1994 award winning
authors:

John Everson, Writers of the Future,
quarter finalist; Nina Kiriki
Hoffman, Bram Stoker Award; Kij
Johnson, Theodore Sturgeon Award;

Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Best
Professional Editor Hugo; Sue Storm,
Honorable Mention, Year's best
Fantasy and Horror.

1075 NW Murray Rd suite 161, Portland, OR 97229
8 issues/yrs, $20/8, $36/16. Canada, add $7/yr,
Mexico, add $14.50/yr, others outside USA
add $24.50/yr. All prices in US funds.

put his unique talents to work at
Sunnyside.

But that's where the Big Time
steps in. Andy's success with the
embalming team brings him fame
and rekindles his dream of beating
Mordecai's record; when the Drabford
Brothers make a pitch to steal Andy
away from Sunnyside, offering him a
chance to go for the record, he caves
in, breaks his contract, and joins the
Drabford empire.

Like R6suin6 with Monsters, The
Unnatural has a lot of fun with its
whacko premise — my particular
favorite is the leaming-to-read book
that appears toward the end ("A is for

SlRIUS^VlSIONS

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

airtight, what the casket should be,- B
is for burial, so deep you can't see").
Like Spencer, Prill also develops a
serious theme beneath the humor,
though it never gets so dark as
Spencer's. Oddly, though, in The
Unnatural the serious thread actu-
ally becomes dominant in the later
going, breaking the story out of its
satirical tone.

The Drabfords send Andy to the
country of Soma (Somalia?), where
they think he'll have the best chance
of breakingMordecai's record. People
are starving to death left and right in
Soma, so Andy's got plenty of mate-
rial to work with. At first Andy's horri-
fied by the desiccated bodies he re-
ceives, andprotests,butthedreambums
within him, so he smothers his doubts
in a frenzy of work. I won't say whether
he breaks the record or not, but while in
Soma Andy does get a first-hand look at
the horrors of dying, and, in one of the
ubiquitous tent hospitals, he even dis-
covers in himself the urge to help the
living, rather than merely tending to
the dead. He feels the driving obsession
withembalmingfadewithinhim. The
desire, that innate instinct to create
something beautiful out of a cold, cold
form was gone. . .he knew he could still
perform the task physically — his
knowledge and skill were certainly still
intact — but the need had faded."

That's the beginning of Andy's
journey back to himself, back to the

pleasure he derived from embalming
before Wake ever recruited him. Re-
turned to the U.S., he turns down an
offer to become partners in a new
venture with P.T. Sunnyside, and
instead outfits an old trailer as a
mobile embalming unit. Andy takes
to the road, driving off into the sun-
set, at peace with himself, his talent,
and the world.

Prillresolvesthetensionsin Andy's
character in a way that Spencer does
not resolve Philip's, and yet The Un-
natural never transcends its gimmick
the way Resume with Monsters does.
Embalming never assumes the charac-
ter of a psychological symbol or meta-
phor, the way Spencer's monsters do.
But we find in the end that we don't
mind. Prill'ssurehandkeepsthetoneof
The Unnatural pitched just right to
prevent us from feeling at all disap-
pointed in the end, and even leaves
room for Andy's story to assume some
genuinely touching dimensions. But
for the interlude in Soma, it keeps its
balance of humor from start to finish.

And to top it all off, it may be the
weirdest thing you read all year. Then
again, who's to say? With major league
sports striking on every side, souring
fans and sullying their own tarnished
images still further, maybe embalming
could actually become a mass-culture
phenomenon. Heck, a kid's gotta have
ahobby, andit'dprobablybepretty easy
to get season tickets. ...

Books To Look For

CHARLES DE LINT

The Armless Maiden and Other
Tales for Childhood's Survivors, ed-
ited by Terri Windling, Tor Books,
1995, 382pp, $22.95, hardcover.

FIND myself in
an uncomfortable
position in regards
to reviewing this

anthology.

Normally in these pages I would
never discuss a book I'm involved
with because I don't think it's fair to
use this forum to promote some-
thing from which I stand to profit. I
also stay away from books that oth-
ers associated with this magazine are
involved with for the same reason.
But I find that this time I have to
review a book in which both I and
F&ISF editor Kris Rusch have stories
because for one thing (let's ignore my
and Kris's contributions for the rest
of this review) the quality of the
stories, poems and essays is so high,
but more importantly, I believe that
the themes and issues dealt with in
The Armless Maiden are too crucial

for me not to do all I can to promote
it.

There are so many books pub-
lished these days, and far too many of
them slip between the cracks and
disappear, unseen, unread, forgotten.
I'd hate to think that the readership
of this column might miss this an-
thology, so I've broken my own rule,
but made a compromise by stating
my bias up front, and I hope you will
understand that I am sincerely trying
to recommend a very worthwhile
project to you — not merely attempt-
ing to see a larger royalty check.
(Although with that said, I have to
add that I do hope that sales of this
book are tremendous because its edi-
tor Terri Windling and many of the
authors, myself included, are donat-
ing their profits to various agencies
offering shelter, counseling, and
medical care to abused children and
I'd like to see the coffers of those
agencies stuffed to overflowing.)

From the above you might gather
that this is an anthology that tackles
a grim subject — and you'd be right.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

For many of us, childhood was hell, a
dark forest in which few found a fairy
tale helper to aid them in their jour-
ney into adulthood. And unfortu-
nately, the situation hasn't changed
today, for all the media blitz on abused
children. Too many children still live
in dangerous environments and too
little is done to help them.

For some people in the creative
arts, the issue has become a conve-
nient foil to explain a past trauma in
the lives of their characters — much
in the same way that the rape/re-
venge scenario was used when fe-
male characters took the lead in sword
&. sorcery and fantasy stories a num-
ber of years ago. And much has been
written, pro and con, in discussion of
the victim mentality, how we deal
with child abuse, suppressed memo-
ries and the like — so much so, some
say, that they wish writers would
find a new hobby horse to ride.

The trouble is, the issue won't
go away. And until it does, we need to
maintain an honest dialogue about
it. We have to speak the words aloud,
point the finger, give no rest to the
issue until all children are allowed to
grow up in the warm safety that so
many don't. But we also have to offer
solace and hope and support to those
who have suffered this trauma, to
those who are suffering it even as you
read these words.

And that's the strength of this
anthology, that it addresses both the
issues and how we can deal with
their aftermath, doing so with a lyric
beauty, a startling resonance, a truth-
ful eye and an empathic warmth as
magical and reassuring as any fairy
godmother. These stories say: You
are not alone. It wasn't/isn't your
fault. There are people who care.
They say: You can survive. You can
be strong. You have nothing to be
ashamed of.

There are those who view fan-
tasy, and in particular fairy tales, as
nothing more than escapism. They've
bought into the Disney versions, be-
lieved the Victorians when they ti-
died the stories up and relegated them
to the nursery. Even today there are
those who feel that children should
be protected from the darker aspects
of fairy tale: Let them enjoy their
childhood, why remind them of what
a terrible world it can be, they'll find
out soon enough on their own.

What they forget is that fairy
tales are learning journeys, with les-
sons far more palatable than the pa-
thetic easy answers offered up to us
in sitcoms and the like. That without
the darkness, there is no light. That
children need to be prepared for what
they will find later in life.That the
sharp contrast between right and
wrong in fairy tales will help them

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

sort through the gray morass that is
the real world. That in a time when
our heroes are movie stars, rock stars
and sports figures who fail us time
and again, we need real heroes to
look up to. The Robin Hoods and
Donkeyskins and Brave Tin Soldiers
of the old stories are not simply plucky
individuals, quaint, perhaps enchant-
ing, but certainly outdated now; they
served, and can still serve, as real role
models, ones that won't let us down.

Fairy tales, like myths and folk
tales, give us the tools with which to
deal with adulthood. And yes, they
can be an escape, but far too often it's
not an escape from something good,
but to something good. As Windling
writes toward the end of the book in
an essay desciibingher troubled child-
hood; "Fairy tales were not my es-
cape from reality as a child; rather
they were my reality — for mine was
a world in which good and bad were
not abstract concepts, and like fairy-
tale heroines, no magic would save
me unless I had the wit and heart and
courage to use it wisely."

And in the next paragraph she
quotes Jane Yolen, no stranger to
readers of this magazine: "Just as a
child is bom with a literal hole in his
head where the bones slowly close
under the fragile shield of skin, so the
child is bom with a figurative hole in
his heart. Slowly this, too, is filled

up. What slips in before it anneals
shapes the man or woman into which
that child will grow. Story is one of
the serious intmders into the heart."

It's no surprise that cultures based
on an oral tradition use stories to in-
stmct their young. What is a surprise is
that our culture has allowed itself to
forget the use of stories, to consider
them merely entertainment, without
real intrinsic worth. So we have a liter-
ary tradition (Classic Literature), and
one based on entertainment (which
includes genre fiction), but what the
classifiers seem to forget is that the
stories that endure, that become Great
Literature, are entertaining as well.
Shakespeare and Dickens grip the read-
er in the same way that a fairy tale does
a child, but if they were published today
would probably be relegated to genre
status.

So the real question is, should
the stories we tell our children be
watered-down, vacuous safe excur-
sions, or should they encompass the
full breadth of the world into which
our children have been bom — a
worldof beauty and darkness, humor
and drama; a world that holds the life
lessons and values that so many speak
of, yet so few tmly follow?

The material to be found in The
Aimless Maiden is a return to such
learning stories. Some are for a more
mature audience, remembering old

FANTASY a. SCIENCE FICTION

lessons, sharing experience, empa-
thizing; others — for all their dark
woods — speak to both child and
adult as the best of the old fairy tales
do. Co back and read some of the
original versions of the fairy tales
you remember today and you might
be surprised to discover that the les-
sons in them aren't lumps of medi-
cine, roughly coated with story sugar.
They grow out of the moral choices
of the characters and the results of
those choices.

And that's what the material in
this anthology does so well, in prose,
verse and essays. The stories they tell
can be grim or enlightening, some-
times both; they can illuminate the
shadows and cast down the ogres and
giants. They do so by lending the
reader sympathy and moral strength
and the knowledge that they're not
alone — whether the reader is a vic-
tim, or someone concerned with
children's rights.

One final point. Many potential
readers might think that an anthol-
ogy such as this will be a grim, de-
pressing read. Not so. It's a journey
on which you will find all aspects of
the human condition illuminated, a
journey that leads not into darkness,
but through it and away from it, into
hope. As Windling writes in her in-
troduction, "While it is the usual
anthology reader's practice to read

stories in a random order, I hope you
will consider letting this book lead
you on a path from start to finish,
into the woods and out again."

The stories do just that, form a
kind of continuous narrative that I
think will surprise as many of the
contributors (working individually,
with no idea as to what the others
were up to) as it did myself.

I have made little mention of
those contributors. Some are well-
known authors (Lynda Barry, Tanith
Lee, Patricia A. McKillip, Joanna
Russ, Peter Straub, Jane Yolen); oth-
ers are less well-known in our field or
appear here for the first time (Dr.
Annita Harlan, Sonia Keicz, Munro
Sickafoose, Silvana Siddali, Ellen
Steiber, Gwen Strauss, Windling her-
self with fiction under her own name) .
But all of them have contributed to
the tapestry of Windling's vision with
a singular quality and, in some cases,
bravery with the stories they've told,
and how they've told them.

The only quibble I have with
anything in the anthology is the no-
tion of forgiveness that arises in one
or two of the pieces, such as the title
story. The concept baffles me. People
who batter children and rape babies
don't deserve to be forgiven. They
deserve only to be ostracized from all
contact with human society. And
therapy's not an answer either.

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

Therapy is for sick people; abusers
are evil — there's a difference. Evil
doesn't know remorse and can't be
cured. All it does is hide away until
the next time it can strike.

As I said earlier, I hope readers
will be as drawn to the narrative that
threads through this book as I was. I
hope it raises lots of money for those
agencies that are helping our chil-
dren. But mostly I hope that it will do
something to address the issues that
appear in its pages — address them in

the here and now, so that today's and
tomorrow's children will be spared
the hurt and grief suffered by too
many of those who came before them.
Or as Windling so ably puts it, "To
make violence against children,
sexual or otherwise, completely un-
acceptable."

Material to be considered for re-
view in this column should be sent to
Charles de Lint, P.O. Box 9480, Ot-
tawa, Ontario, Canada KIG 3V2.'3'

YOU MAieC OeCtStOMS AtL DAY ,
NOW IT*5 TIME. TO mUXf

Kristine Kathryn Rmch's most recent novel Alien Influences (Orion/Millennium),
has been nominated for Britain’s Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction
novel Bantam Books will publish the novel in the States late next year. Ellen Datlow
and Terri Windling’s Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology will reprint Kris’s
story, “Monuments to the Dead" (which appeared in Tales from the Great Turtle
from Tor).

She wrote “Spirit Guides" at the suggestion of Peter Crowther who will publish
the story in his Heaven Sent anthology (Daw) later this year.

— E.F.

Spirit Guides

By Kristine KatJvynRusch

L os ANGELES. CITY OF THE

Angels.

Kincaid walked down Hollywood
Boulevard, his feet stepping on gum-
coated stars. Cars whooshed past him, horns honking, tourists gawking. The
line outside Graumann's Chinese clutched purses against their sides, held
windbreakers tightly over their arms. A hooker leaned against the barred
display window of the comer drug store, her makeup so thick it looked like
a mask in the hot sun.

The shooting had left him shaken. The crazy had opened up inside a
nearby Burger Joint, slaughtering four customers and three teenaged kids
behind the counter before three men, passing on the street, rushed inside and
grabbed him. Half a dozen shots had gone wild, leaving fist-sized holes in the
drywall, shatteringpicture frames, and making one perfect circle in the center
of the cardboard model for a bacon-double cheeseburger.

He'd arrived two minutes too late, hearing the call on his police scanner
on his way home, but unable to maneuver in traffic. Christ, some of those

SPIRIT GUIDES

people who wouldn't let him pass might have had relatives in that Burger
Joint. Still and all, he had arrived first to find the killer trussed up in a chair,
the men hovering around him, women clutching sobbing children, blood and
bodies mixing with french fries on the unswept floor.

A little girl, no more than three, had grabbed his si eeve and pointed at one
of the bodies, long slender male and young, wearing a '49ers T-shirt, ripped
jeans and Adidas, face a bloody mass of tissue, and said, "Make him better,"
in a whisper that broke Kincaid's heart. He cuffed the suspect, roped off the
area, took names of witnesses before the back-up arrived. Three squads, fresh-
faced uniformed officers, followed by the SWAT team, nearly five minutes
too late, the forensic team and the ambulances not far behind.

Kincaid had lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and said, "All yours,"
before taking off into the sun-drenched crowded streets.

He stopped outside the Roosevelt, and peered into the plate glass. His
own tennis shoes were stained red, and a long brown streak of drying blood
marked his Levis. The cigarette had burned to a coal between his nicotine
stained fingers, and he tossed it, stamping it out on the star of a celebrity
whose name he didn't recognize.

Inside stood potted palms and faded glamor. Pictures of motion picture
stars long dead lined the second floor balcony. Within the last ten years, the
hotel's management had restored the Roosevelt to its 1920s glory, when it
had been the site for the first ever Academy Award celebration. When he first
came to LA, he spent a lot of time in the hotel, imagining the low-cut dresses,
the clink of champagne flutes, the scattered applause as the nominees were
announced. Searching for a kind of beauty that existed only in celluloid, a
product of light and shadows and nothing more.

El Pueblo de Nuestra Senoia la Reina de los Angeles de Poiciuncula.

The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula.

He knew nothing of the Angels of Porciuncula, did not know why Filipe
de Neve in 1781 named the city after them. He suspected it was some kind
of prophecy, but he didn't know.

They had been fallen angels.

Of that he was sure.

He sighed, wiped the sweat from his forehead with a grimy hand, then
returned to his car, knowing that home and sleep would elude him for one
more night.

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

Lean and spare, Kincaid survived on cigarettes, coffee, chocolate and
bourbon. Sometime in the last five years, he had allowed the LAPD to hire
him, although he had no formal training. After a few odd run-ins and one
overnight jail stay before it became clear that Kincaid wasn't anywhere near
the crime scene, Kincaid had met Davis, his boss. Davis had the flat gaze of
a man who had seen too much, and he knew, from the records and the
evidence before him, that Kincaid was too precious to lose. He made Kincaid
a plainclothes detective and never assigned him a partner.

Kincaid never told anyone what he did. Most of the cops he worked with
never knew. All they cared about was that when Kincaid was on the job,
suspects were found, cases were closed, and files were sealed. He worked
quietly and he got results.

They didn't need him on this one. The perp was caught at the scene. All
he had to do was write his report, then go home, toss the tennies in the trash,
soak the Levis, and wait for another day.

But it wasn't that easy. He sat in his car, an olive Green 1968 Olds with a fading
pine-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, long after his
colleagues had left. His hands were still shaking, his nostrils still coated with the
scent of blood and burgers, his ears clogged with the faint sobs of a pimply-faced
boy rocking over the body of a fallen coworker. The images would stick, along with
all of the others. His brain was reaching overload. Had been for a long time. But that
little girl's voice, the plea in her tone, had been more than he could bear.

For twenty years, he had tried to escape, always ending up in a new town,
with new problems. Shootings in Oklahoma parking lots, bombings in
Upstate New York, murders in restaurants and shopping malls and suburban
family pickups. The violence surrounded him, and he was trapped.

Surely this time, they would let him get away.

A hooker knocked on the window of his car. He thought he could smell
the sweat and perfume through the rolled- up glass. Her cleavage was mottled,
her cheap elastic top revealing the top edge of brown nipple.

He shook his head, then turned the ignition and grabbed the gear shift on
the column to take the car out of park. The Olds roared to life, and with it
came the adrenaline rush, hormones tinged with panic. He pulled out of the
parking space, past the hooker, down Hollywood Boulevard toward the first
freeway intersection he could find.

SPIRIT GUIDES

Kincaid would disappear from the LAPD as mysteriously as he had
arrived. He stopped long enough to pick up his clothes, his credit cards, and
a hand-painted coffee mug a teenaged girl in Galveston had given him twenty
years before, when she mistakenly thought he had saved her Ufe.

He merged into the continuous LA rush hour traffic for the last time,
radio off, clutching the wheel in white-knuckled tightness. He would go to
Big Bear, up in the mountains, where there were no people, no crimes, nothing
except himself and the wilderness.

He drove away from the angels.

Or so he hoped.

Kincaid drove until he realized he was on the road to Las Vegas. He pulled
the Olds over, put on his hazards and bowed his head, unwilling to go any
farther. But he knew, even if he didn't drive there, he would wake up in Vegas,
his car in the lot outside. It had happened before.

He didn't remember taking the wrong turn, but he wasn't supposed to
remember. They were just telling him that his work wasn't done, the work
they had forced him to do ever since he was a young boy.

With a quick, vicious movement, he got out of the Olds and shook his
fist at the star-filled desert sky. "I can't take it anymore, do you hear me?"

But no shape flew across the moon, no angel wings brushed his cheek, no
reply filled his heart. He could turn around, but the roads he drove would only
lead him back to Los Angeles, back to people, back to murders in which little
girls stood in pools of blood. He knew what Los Angeles was like. Maybe they
would allow him a few days rest in Vegas.

Las Vegas, the fertile plains, originally founded in the late 1 700s like LA, only
the settlement didn't become permanent until 1905 when the first lots were sold
(and nearly flooded out five years later). He thought maybe the city's youth and
brashness would be a tonic, but even as he drove into town, he felt the blood
beneath the surface. Despair and hopelessness had come to everyplace in America.
Only here it mingled with the cajing- jingof slot machines and the smell of money.

He wanted to stay in the MGM Grand, but the Olds wouldn't drive
through the lot. He settled on a cheap tumble-down hotel on the far side of
the strip, complete with chenille bedspreads and rattling window air condi-
tioners that dripped water on the thin brown indoor-outdoor carpet. There he
slept in the protective dark of the blackout curtains, and dreamed;

FANTASY «i SCIENCE FICTION

Angels floated above him, wings so long the tips brushed his face. As he
watched, they tucked their wings around themselves and plummeted, eagle-
like, to the ground below, banking when the concrete of a major superhigh-
way rose in front of them. He was on the bed, watching, helpless, knowing
that each time the long white tailfeathers touched the earth, violence erupted
somewhere it had never been before.

He started awake, coughing the deep racking cough of a three-pack-a-day
man. His tongue was thick and tasted of bad coffee and nicotine. He reached
for the end table, clicking on the brown glass bubble lamp, then grabbed his
lighter and a cigarette from the pack resting on top of the cut-glass ashtray.
His hands were still shaking, and the room was quiet except for his labored
breathing. Only in the silence did he realize that his dream had been
accompanied by the sound of the pimply-faced boy, sobbing.

It happened just before dawn. A woman's scream, outside, cut off in mid-
thmm, followed by a sickening thud and footsteps. He had known it would
happen the minute the car had refused to enter the Grand's parking lot. And
he had to respond, whether it was his choice or not.

Kincaid paused long enough to pull on his pants, checking to make sure
his wallet was in the back pocket. Then he grabbed his key and let himself
out of the room.

His window overlooked the pool, a liver-shaped thing built of blue tile
in the late fifties. The management left the terrace lights on all night, and
Kincaid used those to guide him across the interior courtyard. In the half-
light, he saw another shape mnning toward the pool, a pear-shaped man
dressed in the too-tight uniform of a national rent-a-cop service. The air
smelled of chlorine and the desert heat was still heavy despite the early
morning hour. Leaves and dead bugs floated in the water, and the surrounding
patio furniture was so dirty it took a moment for Kincaid to realize it was
supposed to be white.

The rent-a-cop had already arrived on the scene, his pasty skin turning
green as he looked down. Kincaid came up behind him, stopped, and stared.

The body was crumpled behind the removable diving board. One look at
her blood-stained face, swollen and bruised neck, her chipped and broken
fingernails and he knew.

All of it.

SPIRIT GUIDES

"I'd better call this in," the rent-a-cop said, and Kincaid shook his head,
knowing that if he were alone with the body, he would end up spending the
next few days in a Las Vegas lock-up.

"No, let me." He went back to his room, packed his meager possessions
and set them by the door. Then he called 911 and reported the murder,
slipping on a shirt before going back outside.

The rent-a-cop was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The air
smelled of vomit. Kincaid said nothing. Together they waited for the Nevada
authorities to show: a skinny plainclothes detective whose eyes were red-
rimmed from lack of sleep and his female partner, busty and official in
regulation blue.

While the partner radioed in, the rent-a-cop told his version: that he had
been making his rounds and heard a couple arguing poolside. He was
watching from the window when the man backhanded the woman, and then
took off through the casino. The woman didn't get up, and the cop decided to
check on her instead of chasing the guy. Kincaid had shown up a minute or
two later from his room in the hotel.

The plainclothes man turned his flat gaze on Kincaid. Kincaid flashed his
LAPD badge, then told the plainclothes man that the killer's name was
Luther Hardy, that he'd killed her because her anger was the last straw in a
day that had seen him lose most of their $10,000 savings on the Mirage's
roulette table. Even as the men spoke. Hardy was sitting at the only open
craps table in Circus Circus, betting $25 chips on the come line.

Then Kincaid waited for the disbelief, but the plainclothesman nodded,
thanked him, rounded up the female partner and headed toward Circus
Circus, leaving Kincaid, not the rent-a-cop, to guard the scene. Kincaid
mbbed his nose with his thumb and forefinger, trying to stop a building
headache, feeling the rent-a-cop's scrutiny. Kincaid could always pick them,
the ones who had seen everything, the ones who had learned through hard
experience and crazy knocks to check any lead that came their way. Like
Davis. Only Kincaid was new to this plainclothesman, so there would be a
hundred questions when they returned.

Questions Kincaid was too tired to answer.

He told the rent-a-cop his room number, then staggered back, picked up
his things and checked out, figuring he would be halfway to Phoenix before
they discovered he was gone for good. They would call LAPD, and Davis

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

would realize that Kincaid had finally left, and would probably light a candle
for him later that evening because he would know that Kincaid's singular
talent was still controlling his life.

L ike a hick tourist, Kincaid stopped on the Hoover
Dam. At eight a.m., he stood on the miraculous concrete
structure, staring at the raging blue of the Colorado below.
An angel fluttered past him, then wrapped its wings around
its torso and dove like a gull after prey. It disappeared in the glare of the
sunlight against the water, and he strained, hoping and fearing he'd catch a
glimpse as the angel rose, dripping, from the water.

The glimpses had haunted him since he was thirteen. He'd been in St.
Patrick's Cathedral with his mother, and one of the stained glass angels left
her window, floated through the air, and kissed him before alighting on the
pulpit to tickle the visiting priest during mass. The priest hadn't noticed the
feathers brush his face and neck, but he had died the next day in a mugging
outside the subway station at 63rd and Lexington.

Kincaid hadn't seen the mugging, but his train had arrived only a few
seconds after the priest died.

Years later, Kincaid finally thought to wonder why he hadn't died from
the angel's kiss. And, although he still didn't have the answer, he knew that
his second sight came from that morning. All he needed to do was look at a
body to know who had driven the spirit from it, and why. The snapshots
remained in his mind in all their horror, surrounded by faces frozen in agony,
each shot a sharp moment of pain that pierced a hole in his increasingly fragile
soul.

As a young man, he believed he could stop the pain, that he had been
given the gift so that he could end the horrors. He would ride out, like St.
George, and defeat the dragon that had terrified the village. But these terrors
were as old as time itself, and instead of stopping them, Kincaid could only
observe them, and report what his inner eye had seen. He had thought, as he
grew older, that using his skills to imprison the perpetrators would help, but
the deaths continued, more each year, and the little girl in the Burger Joint had
provided the final straw.

Make him better.

Kincaid didn't have that kind of magic.

SPIRIT GUIDES

The angel flew out of the wide crevice, past the canyon walls, its tail
feathers dripping just as Kincaid had feared. Somewhere within a two
hundred mile radius, someone would die violently because an angel had
brushed the earth. Kincaid hunched himself against the bright morning, then
turned and walked along the rock-strewn highway to his car. When he got
inside, he kept the radio off so that the news of the atrocity would not hit him
when it happened.

But the silence wouldn't keep him ignorant forever. He would turn on
the TV in a hotel, or pass a row of newspapers outside a restaurant, and the
information would present itself to him, as clearly and brightly as it always
had, as if it were his responsibility, subject to his control.

The car led him into Phoenix. From the freeway, the city was a row of
concrete lanes, marred by machine-painted lines. From the sidestreets, it had
well-manicured lawns and tidy houses, too many strip restaurants and the
ubiquitous mall. He was having a chimichanga in a neighborhood Garcia's
when he watched the local news and realized that he might not hear of an
atrocity after all. He finished the meal and left before the national news aired.

He was still in Phoenix at midnight, and had not yet found a hotel. He
didn't want to sleep, didn't want to be led to the next place where someone
would die. He was sitting alone at a small table in a high class strip joint,
sipping bourbon that actually had a smooth bite instead of the cheap stuff he
normally got. The strippers were legion, all young, with tits high and firm and
asses to match. Some had long lean legs and others were all torso. But none
approached him, as if a sign were flashing above him warning the women
away. He drank until he could feel it — he didn't know how many drinks that
was anymore — and was startled that no one noticed him getting tight.

Even drunk, he couldn't relax, couldn't laugh. Enjoyment had leached
out of him, decades ago.

When the angel appeared in front of him, he thought it was another
stripper, taller than most, wrapped in gossamer wings. Then it unfolded the
wings and extended them, gently, as if it were doing a slow- motion fan dance,
and he realized that its face had no features, and its body was fat and nippleless
like a butterfly.

He raised his glass to it. "You gonna kiss me again?" His thoughts had
seemed clear, but the words came out slurred.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

The angel said nothing — it probably couldn't speak since it had no
mouth. It merely took the drink from him, and set the glass on the table. Then
it grabbed his hand, pulled him to his feet, and led him from the room like a
recalcitrant child. He vaguely wondered how he looked, stumbling alone
through the maze of people, his right arm outstretched.

When the fresh air hit him, the bourbon backed up in his throat like bile.
He staggered away from the beefy valets behind the potted cactus, and threw
up, the angel standing beside him, still as a statue. After a moment, he stood
up and wiped his mouth with the crumpled handkerchief he kept folded in
his back pocket. He still felt drunk, but not as bloated.

Then the angel scooped him in its arms. Its body was soft and cold as if
it contained no life at all. It cradled him like a baby, and they flew up until
the city became a blaze of lights.

The wind mffled his hair and woke him even more. He felt strangely
calm, and he attributed that to the alcohol, fust as he was getting used to the
oddness, the angel wrapped its wings around them and plummeted toward
the ground.

They were moving so fast, he could feel the force of the air like a slap in
his face. He was screaming — he could feel it, ripping at his throat — but he
could hear nothing. They hurtled over the interstate. The cars were the size
of ants before the angel extended its wings to ease their landing.

The angel tilted them upright, and they touched down in an empty glass-
strewn parking lot that led to an insurance office whose door was surrounded by
yellow police tape. He recognized the site from the local newscast he had caught
in Garcia's: ever since eight that morning, the insurance office had been the
location of a hostage situation. A husband had decided to terrorize his wife who
worked inside and, although shots had been fired, no one had been injured.

He stared at the building felt the terror radiate from its walls as if it were
a furnace. The insurance company was an old one: the gold lettering on the
hand-painted window was chipped, and inside, he could barely make out the
shape of an overturned chair. He turned to ask the angel why it had brought
him there, when he realized it was gone.

Kincaid stood in the parking lot for a moment, one hand wrapped around
his stomach, the other holding his throbbing head. They had flown for miles.
He still had his wallet, but had no idea where he was or how he would find
a pay phone.

SPIRIT GUIDES

And he didn't know what the angel had wanted from him.

He sighed and walked across the parking lot. The broken glass crunched
beneath his shoes. His mouth was dry. The police tape looked too yellow in
the glare of the streetlight. He stood on the stoop and peered inside, half
hearing the voices from earlier in the day, the shouts from the police bullhorn,
the low tense voice of the wife, the terse clipped tones of her husband. About
noon the husband had gone outside to smoke a cigarette — his wife hated
smoke — and had shot a stray dog to ward off the policeman who had been
sneaking up behind him.

Kincaid could smell the death. He followed his nose to the side of the building.
There, among the gravel and the spindly flowerless rose bushes, lay the dog on its
side. It was scrawny and its coat was mottled. Its tongue protruded just a bit from
its open mouth. Its glassy eyes seemed to follow Kincaid, and he wondered how
the news had missed this, the sympathy story amidst all the horror.

The stations in LA would have covered it.

Poor dog. A stray in life, unremembered in death. Just standing over it,
he could see the last moments — the enticing smell of food from the police
cars suddenly mingled with the scent of human fear, the glittery eyes of the
male human and then pain, sharp, deep, and complete.

Kincaid crouched beside it. In all his years, he had never touched a dead
thing, never felt the cold lifeless body, never totally understood how a body
could live and then not live within the same instant. In the past he had left
the dead for someone else to clean up, but here no one would. The dog would
rot in this site of trauma and near-human tragedy, and no one would take the
care to bury the dead.

Perhaps that was why the angel brought him, to show him that there had
been carnage after all.

He didn't know how to bury it. All he had were his hands. But he touched
the soft soil of the rose garden, his wrist bmshing the dog's tail as he did so.

The dog coughed and struggled to sit up.

Kincaid backed away so quickly he nearly fell. The dog choked, then
coughed again, spraying blood all over the bushes, the gravel, and the
concrete. It looked at him with a mixture of fear and pain.

"Jesus," Kincaid muttered.

He pushed himself forward, then grabbed the dog's shoulders. Its labored
breathing eased and its tail thumped slightly against the ground. Something

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

clattered against thepavement,andhesaw the bullet, rollingaway. The dogstood,
whimpered, hcked his hand, and then trotted off to fill its empty stomach.

Kincaid sat down in the glass and gravel, staring at his blood-covered
hands.

Phoenix.

A creature of myth that rose from its own ashes to live again.

He had been such a fool.

All those years. All those lives.

Such a fool.

He looked up at the star-filled desert sky. The angel that had brought him
hovered over him like a teacher waiting to see if the student understood the
lecture. He couldn't relive his life, but maybe, just maybe, he could help one
little girl who had spoken with the voice of angels.

Make him bettei.

"Take me back to Los Angeles, " he said to the angel. "To the people who
died yesterday."

And in a heartbeat, he was back in the Burger Joint. The killer, an
overweight acne-scarred man with empty eyes, was tied to a chair near the
window, a group of men milling nervously around him, the gun leaning
against the wall behind them. All the children were crying, their parents
pressing the tiny faces against shoulders, trying to block the sight. The air
smelled of burgers and fresh blood.

A little girl, no more than three, grabbed Kincaid's sleeve and pointed at
one of the bodies, long slender male and young, wearing a '49ers T-shirt,
ripped jeans and Adidas, face a bloody mass of tissue, and said, "Make him
better," in a whisper that broke Kincaid's heart.

Kincaid crouched, hands shaking, wishing desperately for a cigarette,
and grabbed the body by the arm. Air whistled from the lungs, and the blood
bubbled in the remains of the face. As Kincaid watched, the face returned, the
blood disappeared and a young man was staring at him with fear-filled eyes.

"You all right, friend?" Kincaid asked.

The man nodded and the little girl flung herself in his arms.

"Jesus," someone said behind him.

Kincaid shook his head. "It's amazing how bad injuries can look when
someone's covered with blood."

SPIRIT GUIDES

He didn't wait for the response, just went to the next body and the next,
his need for a cigarette decreasing with touch, the blood drying as if it had
never been. When he got behind the counter, he gently pushed aside the
pimply-faced boy sobbing over the dead coworker, and then he paused.

If he reversed this one, they would have nothing to indict the killer on.

The boy's breath hitched as he watched Kincaid. Kincaid turned and
looked over his shoulder at the killer tied to the chair near the entrance. Holes
the size of fists marred the drywall and made one perfect circle in the center
of the cardboard model for a bacon-double cheeseburger. It would be enough.

He grabbed the body's shoulders, feeling the grease of the uniform
beneath his fingers. The spirit slid back in as if it had never left, and the
wounds sealed themselves as they would on a video tape mn backwards.

All those years. All those wasted years.

"How did you do that?" the pimply-faced boy asked, his face shiny with
tears.

"He was only stunned," Kincaid said.

When he was done, he went outside to find the back-up team interview-
ing witnesses, the ambulances just arriving, five minutes too late.

"All yours," he said, before taking off into the sun-drenched crowded
streets.

Now he had to keep moving. No jobs with police departments, no
comfortable apartments. He had to stay one step ahead of a victim's shock,
one step ahead of the press who would someday catch wind of his ability. He
couldn't let them comer him, because the power was not his to control.

He was still trapped.

He stopped outside the Roosevelt, lit a cigarette, and peered into the plate
glass. His own tennis shoes were stained red, and a long brown streak of
drying blood marked his Levis. The cigarette had burned to a coal between his
nicotine-stained fingers before he had a chance to take a drag, and he tossed
it, stamping it out on the star of a celebrity whose name he didn't recognize.

All those years and he never knew. The kiss made some kind of cosmic
sense. Even Satan, the head of the fallen angels, was once beloved of God.
Even Satan must have felt remorse at the pain he caused. He would never be
accepted back into the fold, but he might use his powers to repair some of the
pain he caused. Only he wouldn't be able to alone, for each time he touched

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

the earth, he would cause another death. What better to do, then, but to give
healing power to a child, who would learn and grow into the role.

Kincaid's hands were still shaking. The blood had crusted beneath his
fingernails.

"I never asked for this!" he shouted, and people didn't even turn as they
passed on the street. Shouting crazies were common in Hollywood. He held
his hands to the sky. "I never asked for this!"

Above him, angels flew like eagles, soaring and dipping and diving, never
coming close enough to endanger the Earth. Their featureless faces radiated
a kind of joy. And, although he would never admit it, he felt that joy too.

Although he would not slay the dragon, he wouldn't have to live with its
carnage either. Finally, at last, he could make some kind of difference. He let
his hands fall to his side, and wondered if the Roosevelt would shirk at letting
him wash the blood off inside. He was about to ask when a stray dog pushed
its muzzle against his thigh.

"Ah, hell," he said, looking down and recognizing the mottled fur, the
wary yet trusting eyes. He glanced up, saw one angel hovering. A gift then,
for finally understanding. He touched the dog on the back of its neck, and led
it to the Olds. The dog jumped inside as if it knew the car. Kincaid sat for a
moment, resting his shaking hands against the steering column.

A hooker knocked on the window. He thought he could smell the sweat
and perfume through the rolled-up glass. Her cleavage was mottled, her cheap
elastic top revealing the top edge of brown nipple.

He shook his head, then turned the ignition and grabbed the gear shift on
the column to take the car out of park. The dog barked once, and he grinned
at it, before driving home to get his things. This time he wouldn't try Big Bear.
This time he would go wherever the spirit led him.

We are always pleased to have a Jack McDevitt story in our pages. His most recent
story for us, “Glory Days," appeared in our August, 1994 issue. He has been
nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and his story “Ships of the Night" won
the Polytechnical University of Catalunya Novella Award in Spain in 1993. Ace!
Berkeley published his most recent novel. The Engines of God.

About “Cruising through Deuteronomy, " Jack writes, “1 woke with the idea on
a Sunday morning, after having gone to bed thinking how everything looks best when
you can’t see it too clearly: misty rivers, heroic acts, moonlit women. Time travel
stories usually focus on the paradox, instead of on their genuinely scary aspect:
clearing away the mist. "

Cruising through
Deuteronomy

By Jack McDevitt

I HE BANGING SOUNDED

like distant thunder.

Cardwell was slow to move, had in
fact been sitting in the dying firelight,
allowing the storm to carry away his gloomy mood. Rick padded barefoot
from the kitchen through the hallway and opened the front door. The wind
blew louder.

There were whispers in the hall, and an authoritarian voice that he did
not recognize. Rick appeared. "Dad," he said. "You have a visitor."

A tall, severe figure followed the boy into the room. Cardwell saw at
once that he was a clergyman, one of those advanced types that affect plaid
jackets. He was quite tall, with intense dark eyes contrasted against a bland
smile. He shook rain off his hat and coat, and held them out for Rick. "Dr.
Cardwell?" he asked, coming forward.

Cardwell heaved himself out of his chair. "You have the advantage of me,

sir."

FANTASY SCIENCE FICTION

"I'm Pastor Gant." His glance swept the room, and registered diffident
approval. "From the Good Shepherd Church over in Bridgeton." He said it as
if it explained his visit.

Cardwell debated whether he could leave him standing. But his breeding
got the better of him, and he indicated a chair. "What can I do for you. Pastor? "

"I'll come right to the point if you don't mind." He sat down and held his
hands out to the fire.

"Yes. Good. Can I offer you a brandy?"

He waved the idea away with a choreographed gesture. His fingers were
long and graceful. "No, thank you. I'm not opposed to drink on principle, you
understand. But I prefer to abstain."

Rick, whose boredom with Cardwell's inner circle was usually painfully
obvious, took a chair where he could watch.

Pastor Gant reached into his pocket, and took out precisely what
Cardwell had expected: the clipping from last Tuesday's News. He held it
toward the firelight, and looked at it as though it were vaguely loathesome.
"Is there actually anything to this?" he asked.

"The Displacer?"

"The time machine."

"The story is correct in its essentials."

"I see. " The long fingers toyed with the paper. He turned toward the boy.
"Son," he said, "perhaps it would be best if you left the room."

Rick didn't stir, but Gant did not seem to notice.

"Pastor," said Cardwell, "I don't want to be abrupt, but I'm really quite
preoccupied at the moment."

"Yes, I'm sure you are." He crossed his legs, and let his head drift back.
"Doctor, you must understand that the people of my church are good people. "

"I'm sure they are."

"But life can be very harsh. Several, at this moment, are bearing up under
terminal illnesses. Another has recently lost a child. Just about your son's age,
I might add. Still another — "

"Might I press you to come to the point?"

"Of course. "He looked not quite substantial in the flickering light. "The
only thing that keeps us going, when life becomes — " he searched for a word,
" — difficult, the only thing that sustains us, is our sure and certain
knowledge of a divine protector."

CRUISING THROUGH DEUTERONOMY

Cardwell's stomach began to hurt. "Reverend," he said, "I'd be pleased
to discuss all this with you at a future date."

Gant stared into the fire, as if his host had not spoken. "You will take all
this from them, Doctor."

Cardwell frowned. There'd been some minor fuss over that article.
Fortunately, the limited circulation of the News, and the general tendency of
people in the area to mind their business had however protected him. "I
hardly see how that can be," he said.

"You know what will happen if you complete the device?" He rose
from his chair and towered over Cardwell. His eyes grew very large and
very black. "You will cruise through Deuteronomy. Glide across
Numbers. Descend into Exodus. There were no trumpets at Jericho, you
will say. No angel at Sodom. No division of the Red Sea. No haircut for
Samson." His smile lengthened at that, but there was no warmth in the
gesture. "You will say there was no Fall, and hence no need for a Redeemer.
You will travel into the sacred country and every time you return you will
bring with you a cargo of despair. I simply cannot allow that to happen." He
drew a small revolver from his pocket and pointed it at a spot between
Cardwell's eyes.

Rick gasped and started forward. But his father, with a quick jerky wave,
stopped him.

"I'm sorry," said the pastor. It was hard to see his expression in the play
of light and shadow. "I truly am. " He studied the weapon. "It is often difficult
to know the right thing to do."

Cardwell could not take his eyes from the gun. It amazed him that a
stranger would come into his home and threaten to use one on him. The
entire world centered in the round black muzzle. "You're too late," he said.

Gant's gaze shifted. Bored into him. "What do you mean?"

"I've already done it. I've made the flight. Several, in fact."

"I don't believe you."

"Did you really think I'd let the newspapers have the story if I weren't
sure? And there's only one way to be sure." He eased himself back into his
chair. Anything to get out from in front of that muzzle. And he was relieved
to see that when it followed him, it locked onto his right knee. "There is a
prototype, George. Your name is George, isn't it?"

That surprised him. "How did you know?"

FANTASY A, SCIENCE FICTION

"I pass your church every day on my way to the campus. Your name is
prominently displayed."

"I wish that you might have seen fit to come hy and say hello."

Cardwell nodded. "Possibly I've been remiss."

"I'm surprised you would see that." Gant's brow furrowed.

"How could I not? Pastor, I’ve been on the ark."

The rain hissed against the windows. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it? Then why are you here? Either you believe it's possible, or you
don't. If you don't, I'd like to know why you're threatening my life."

Gant stared at him. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. "Is it
really true?"

"Yes, it's true. I've walked her decks. Felt her roll in the swell of the
storm. Seen the tigers in their bays."

The gun came up. Swung a few degrees. Cardwell realized it was pointed
at Rick. "Stay back, " said Gant. "I don't want to shoot you . " He took a deep
breath and let it out slowly. "Indeed, I wish there were a way to do this
without shooting anyone."

"Then believe me," Cardwell said desperately.

The pastor stared at him for a long moment. "Noah," he said.

"Yes?"

"Did you talk to him?"

"I didn't know the language. I saw him."

The hand wavered.

"Listen to me. I was at the foot of the mountain when Moses returned
with the Tablets. I saw him shatter them against the rocks. I watched
Solomon give judgment and walked through his temple. I stood a few feet
from David when he killed the Philistine. I was in the crowd when Jesus
delivered the sermon on the mount."

Perspiration glittered on Gant's forehead. "You're lying " he said. "You're
mocking me. And blaspheming everything that's holy. You're a non-believer.
I know about you. I've read what you've written."

Cardwell smiled gently. "That was tme once. George, I was on the shore
during the storm when the Master stepped out of the boat. I looked into His eyes. "

The pastor tried to speak, but only strangled sounds got out.

"Gant, do you, at last, not believe? " His voice rose until it was one with
the wind beating at the window. “Where is yourfaithl”

CRUISING THROUGH DEUTERONOMY

The gun clattered to the floor. A sob welled up in Gant's throat, and he
fell forward into Cardwell's arms and almost knocked him down. But
Cardwell held on, and the pastor embraced him. A log popped and fell into the
fire.

"Thank you, " said Gant, finally, wiping his cheek. "I was terribly wrong
to come here. Not to see what would happen." His face brightened, and he
squeezed Cardwell's shoulders again. "I hope you'll come by the church and
share your experience with all of us." And, without stopping for hat, coat, or
gun, he walked straight out of the house.

When he was gone, they locked the door. "Dad," Rick said, "you were
terrific."

"Thanks."

"Are you going to call the police?"

"Maybe in the morning. Let me think about it."

"I was scared."

"So was I, kid."

The boy picked up the weapon and put it on a bookshelf. He grinned.
"The displacement principle doesn't work, right? You told me that yesterday.
The time machine won't ever get off the ground."

"That's right."

The boy's eyes gleamed. "Don't you have any respect at all for the truth.
Dad?"

"Sometimes I think truth is overrated," said Cardwell. "On that one, I
believe I'm with the Christians. My money's on faith."

Tanith Lee last appeared in F&.SF in August of 1992. Since then she has been
publishing a wonderful series of novels for Dell Abyss.

“These Beasts" is also a dark tale. “The idea for the plot," she writes, “is
actually my husband's (writer fohn Kaiine). But he made the mistake of telling me
about it around midnight, and although I didn’t actually have nightmares, by the
following morning I had enough notions of how the story could go. I asked him if I
could have it, and he generously agreed. "

These Beasts

By Tanith Lee

from an idea by John Kaiine

E WAS A TOMB ROBBER.

Well, when you were dead, you were dead.

All came to it. The mighty in their
gold and gems, the impoverished un-
known, wrapped in rags, their legs broken to fit the grave. And even he,
Carem, would one day die. He did not mind if someone robbed him, after
death. Welcome, my friend.

It was this life that counted.

Oh, he had been bom as no one in the splendid city among the pink rocks .
Noom Dargh, once the seat of kings, but no longer. He had been a whore's son,
sold at three months to be another whore. At ten, evading the man who was
his owner — spuriously charming, as Carem had learned to be, they all trusted
him — he made off with traders. He was quick as fire. Handsome too.

Among the traders he learned his profession.

The caravan routes went all ways. And in the yellow deserts, stood up the
strange bulbous stones, caught forever in mid- topple. "What is that place?"
"Ah, we will show him." It was a place of tombs.

THESE BEASTS

They went by night. No moon. Things howled in the desert, but he was
not afraid. No, not until they breached the stinking hotness of the rock and
the bats, which laired there, poured outward — Then the man who liked
Carem consoled him. "There's nothing here to hurt you. But look — what's
that which shines?" What shone was gold, contrary to so many proverbs.

By the time he was a man, Carem had gained much knowledge, and some
wealth. Let it be said, the wealth came from others and the knowledge was
all to do with thievery. But Carem did not harm the living. No, he was kind
to them. He gave to beggars in the street, and was generous with the girls he
dighted.

By his twenty-eighth year, he had a house on the edge of Noom Dargh,
a house with gardens and channels of water, a house with courtyards and
dove-cotes, and awnings embroidered by gold.

He had also two wives, Bisint, who was rich, and Zulmia, who was
beautiful.

In the city they spoke of him with respect. No one publicly remembered
anymore what he did. Indeed, he did not do it, for now other men worked on
his behalf, and brought him treasures by night through a secret walk in the
starry garden.

Lucky Carem. A life from death.

Onesunset as, half a mile away below his mansion, thecity tumedblood-
red and the desert scarlet, someone came seeking Carem; would speak only
to him.

They met on a shady terrace and drank fig wine.

"I hurried straight to you, sir," said the visitor, a traveler from antique
lands. "You alone could do it."

"Do what?"

"Get in, get out. It needs skill and wisdom. It needs knowledge of such
things."

"What things are they?"

The traveler smiled. "They call yours a bestial career, but I say one does
what one is good at."

"You mean my shares in merchant enterprise."

"No. Your tomb-robbery."

Carem said, smiling too, "Have I been insulted?"

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

"Not at all. You're known as a master. And this, believe me, who would
not dare it, needs a master's touch."

"You may explain. For purposes of amusement. If I laugh enough, you
shall have gold to fill one hand, and sufficient silver to fill two."

"Treble that. You will find you'll laugh your head off. Lord Carem."

Then the traveler spoke of an ancient country, once astride the world,
and now come down to ruination. Its great obsession, this land, had been the
burial of its kings and princes — of whom there were many — in the most
sumptuous and enduring manner. And, too, in deepest secret. Now and then
one of these burial spots would be thought to have been discovered. Then
everyone went mad. And, often as not, since they were usually also wrong,
venturers came back with nothing but sore bones and empty wallets.

"This / have, however," said the traveler, "is not only sure — and I can
give you proof — it is infallible. Besides which, it is known. Spoken and
dreamed of, a thing of sparkle and nightmare."

"Is there the normal curse, then, on the tomb ? " asked Carem, indolently.
Had he been a fox, his ears would have stood up high enough to touch the
awning overhead.

"A curse knovm as familiarly as the tomb. Indeed, the tomb is named for
it. There in the waste beyond the pastures of the River Khenemy."

"Oh, is it Stone-Beard's Palace? That was pillaged three years ago. So I've
been led to believe."

"Not there."

"The Garden of Arches, then? That too. And only a wisp of gold got from
it."

"Not there."

"More wine?" inquired Carem. "A cake?"

"Yes, I will take more wine. The burial place I offer you is the Tomb of
the Black Dog."

Then Carem, despite the last trace of the sunset, paled. His eyes opened
and closed, and opened. He said, "Surely that is only a story."

"Till now. Now it can be yours."

"And your proof."

Then the traveler took a purse out of his clothing and out of the purse he
drew a narrow gleaming snake. This he set on the terrace, where, after two
or three convulsive movements, it brought up out of its jaws a small black egg.

THESE BEASTS

The egg sat on the paving.

The traveler spoke a word that fell like a raw hot drop of unseasonal rain.

The egg burst, and there lay a tiny black figure of a dog at rest, its head
erect, and its throat rimmed by gold.

"A copy of the image that guards the tomb?"

"Found in the sand not twenty paces from the area."

Muttering a protective charm, Carem picked up the figurine and held it.
It was unearthly cold. He put it down. It cast no shadow, turn it as he would.

"Tell me all you know," said Carem.

The traveler did so. Presently much gold and silver was given over in
handfuls.

At midnight they parted, the traveler and Carem, and Carem went
prudently to sleep with his plain wife, Bisint, for in the morning he would be
going away.

I HE JOURNEY to Khenemy took several months, longer
than was ordinarily needful, since Carem undertook the
end of it in disguise, as a poor lame pilgrim, seeker of the
shrines of the holy river.

Many tiresome days Carem spent, smothered by dust and ringing his
irritating little pilgrim's bell at the gates of collapsed temples, until at last,
moved apparently by that mystic urge which drives prophets and seers, he
wandered out into the desert waste.

The desert of Khenemy was like no other.

Where the River was, emerald pastures swelled, with cows and cameloids
feeding beneath palms heavy with dates, and lime green banana trees. Then
there lay the strips of fields, and sacred groves, and thereafter the first of the
waste, brown as an egg, where, in caves, the former inhabitants of old fallen
cities lived, lighting at night their fires and lamps of hom, like yellow stars
felled to the land.

After this, a place opened that was like hell.

The land was white,and blistered the soles through your boots, the sun
was a ball of white matter, and the sky white, and here and there rose monuments
of the race of Khenemy, which had passed away. Statue men a hundred feet tall,
wielding swords of stone, towers and gateways that led nowhere, all blasted by a
hot moistureless wind, the breath of something long dead.

FANTASY ». SCIENCE FICTION

Carem, though, had a map. Not to hand, but written accurately in his
head.

So he trekked by day the burning waste, and slept by night under the suns
of other indifferent worlds. And on the second evening, he reached a sort of
cliff. And in the eastern front of it was a mark, that looked only, natural, but
not to him. It was like the face of a dog.

No time like the present

Carem went to the cliff and stared hard, and saw how the rock was.

Then he put up his agile right "lame" foot, and lifted himself. From the
first step he discovered the second. They were set oddly, and were not safe.
He negotiated them all, with only a little powdering of dust to show his passage.

Above, far up, the cliff was flat as a stone table.

Once there, it was possible to look for miles, and see nothing but the
nighttime desert, with here and there, one of its ghastly monuments.

Instead Carem looked and saw a hag seated by a round hole in the stone.

"Stay," said the hag. "Let me tell you what you risk."

"Very well," said Carem.

"Once I was very young," said the hag.

"That might be said of all of us."

"I traveled here, " continued the hag, humorlessly. "I sought to enter the
Tomb of the Black Dog. Aieee! I did not know. I thought it the burial place
of some great king, guarded by that fearsome guardian, Anubar, the Biter of
Souls."

Carem nodded.

The hag said, "Know, it is the Tomb of the Black Dog Himself. So we
discovered to our cost. He Himself lies buried here, that guardian invoked in
so many other places."

Carem shivered, but it was only the heat.

"Thus all of you died, granny, and you're a ghost."

"Nay," said granny, "me alone He let live. But see," and she opened her
robe with her left hand to reveal horrid scars and omissions. "He tore off my
right arm and my right breast. I am His warning."

"Thank you," said Carem. "Now you have warned me you may be off."

The hag got up and walked away. She cast no shadow. That too the Black
Dog had tom from hir. She went down the cliff by another way, invisible to
ordinary persons.

THESE BEASTS

Oh, he was not alanned. Not Carem.

He sat by the black hole in the stone and took a pipe from his garments.
On this he blew. It made no noise.

It would sound however a few hours' journey away, at the spot to which
he had earlier sent the men who would help him at the tomb. He had now
merely to wait.

He first anointed himself from a phial, then stretched out in the hot
night. The dead breath of the wind lulled him. He slept.

When the moon rose, the jingle of harness conveniently roused him
again, and sitting up, he beheld the twenty men he had hired, who had
gathered at the foot of the cliff.

Carem rose and poured onto the stone of the tomb some wine and oil.

"What are you doing?" demanded one of the men below among the
cameloids.

"Making the first offering," said Carem. "Come up now, as I will direct
you."

Up they came. A mixed bag they were. Some aristocratic and anxious, others
pure fresh scum. They crowded around him, and Carem pointed to the hole.

"The rope I have readied. Who will be first down into the tomb?"

No one thrilled at the chance.

Carem said, "This gold piece, to the first."

After this there were some offers.

Presently three men climbed down, one after the other.

"What do you see?"

"Darkness."

"Yes, that's as it should be."

Then Carem went down and the others followed him.

In the tomb, Carem struck a light, and lit a torch.

It was very hot, as Carem was well used to, but no bats laired there.
Nothing lived in that enclosure. Not even a spider or a beetle. Bones there
were, however, on the floor.

The walls were brown, and painted dimly by a massive figure that had
the head of a long-nosed black dog. At this the crew pointed uneasily.

Carem drew from his clothes a small dark bottle. He spilled out its
contents on the stone floor. Fluid ran, and formed a pattern. It was a map, in
liquid, of the tomb.

FANTASY a SCIENCE FICTION

Just at that moment came a low soft growl.

The hired men, most of them, bleated with alarm.

But, "It's only magic," said one.

"Exactly so," said Carem. "You are meant to fear it and mn away empty-
handed. Think of the treasures that lie in the inner chambers."

The men were somewhat consoled. They rubbed their amulets and
muttered.

"Do you see that door, " said Carem, consulting his liquid map, "who will
go through first?"

There was great rivalry as to who would not.

While they argued something came mshing.

It was like a wind, or five hundred hounds, packed close as fish in a shoal,
mnning after game.

The man nearest the door was one minute there, and then his head was
off. It was wrenched from his shoulders. Next the fellow beside him was
disemboweled, and another split from throat to crotch. All this was done by
an agency invisible.

With quick screams, and sometimes so swift there was no time for that
either, the twenty men of Carem's hire landed in pieces and bits on the floor,
where the bones of previous victims lay.

But Carem, who had anointed himself with a certain thing repellant to
all dogs, was not touched.

When the last man had had his throat tom out, a low satisfied growl rang
round the space.

"Thus I make the second offering," said Carem.

Then he walked through the dark door without being molested, and
through thirteen passages, right up to the farthest wall. There he kneeled and
felt with his hands by the light of his torch.

Soon he made out a round door no higher than a child of three, and no
wider than said child lying sideways.

Through that Carem crawled, and so entered the treasure vault.

There was just enough light to behold.

The room was stuffed with gold, and jewels, green and crimson, blue and
white. But everything was on a little scale, even the emeralds no larger than
a thumbnail, and the golden effigies of dogs and wolves, foxes and jackals,
were the size of acoms and peach stones.

THESE BEASTS

Carem filled the bags inside his clothes, his boots, his loin-pouch. He
opened the ready purses at his neck and waist. He put things into his mouth,
and up his nostrils, and in his ears, and elsewhere, which shall be nameless.

Take as you find.

On the wall of this last room, which was a sort of kennel, was painted no
dog, but a black eye. Carem took no obvious notice of it as he screwed a ruby
into his navel. Sucking a last golden standing jackal with diamond eyes
between his lips, Carem crawled back out of the inner place.

He had accrued a great amount, yet a greater was left. Let that, then, be
the third offering, his temperance. For the rest, he would have reputation.
That was worth a vaster amount than the stones themselves.

Back through the thirteen passages he waddled. In the outer passage he
waddled. In the outer place, he stepped fastidiously over the bones.

He stood a moment listening.

Somewhere something howled, but it was, as usual, on the desert
outside.

Carem climbed the rope, awkwardly, and emerged into the boiling air,
which was itself like the interior of a grave.

On the table top of the tomb, huge black paw marks were apparent in the
moonlight, and overhead the mass of stars seemed to describe, for a moment, the
skull of a dog.

Carem pulled up the rope, and spoke a word. The entry to the tomb, the
hole, vanished.

Below the cliff most of the cameloids had run off. But a few remained,
trembling and farting with fear. He would sell them at a handy village. Well,
a shame to waste.

When he got down from the cliff, Carem turned about on the sand,
clanking and clinking from his weight of jewels and gold.

There on the smooth ground lay something black, pointing from him and
away from the moon. He had kept his shadow. All was well.

On his return home, plain Bisint tactfully sent word that she was out of
sorts, and beautiful Zulmia met Carem in the garden, plump as a white plum
and garlanded with blue-black hair. Much joy he had of her, under the roses
and lemon trees, while bees buzzed and the honeyed sun slowly set into the
uncomplicated pink desert of Noom Dargh.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

He did not tell Zulmia, or even Bisint, anything of his exploits, nor did
he give them anything from his robbery. Instead he brought Zulmia a rope of
pearls and sapphires to match her skin and eyes, and Bisint a rope of topaz to
match her teeth.

The treasure of the tomb Carem sold carefully and meagerly. Soon nobles
and lords sent word to him, and later might come the words of kings. He
would be famous now. He would be feared as well as praised.

Zulmia approached her husband modestly. She told him, as if he, not she,
had been clever, that she was with child.

"I am sure it's a boy, masterful husband. Only a male would spring from
your loins."

Carem was pleased, for never before, to his knowledge, had he repro-
duced himself.

He looked delightedly at his lovely wife, plumper than ever, her hair like
silk, and at her feet her jet black shadow. All was wonderfully well.

How charmingly the days and nights passed then. Even Bisint was
helpful, often ailing, and keeping to her rooms. If she should die, all her wealth
would come to Carem.

He would think now, upon sunny evenings, watching the final noose of
light about the towers of the city below, how he might give up for good his
profession. How he might turn to other things, from which none would dare
refuse him entry. His son, after all, should inherit a business, not merely an
empire of robbery.

On the night of the full moon, eight months later, Bisint peacefully
passed away.

In a generous spirit, Carem left her her topazes to be buried in.

It was midday, and beautiful Zulmia had gone into labor. From the
arbor where Carem sat drinking pomegranate wine, the house was closely
visible, and her screams of pain might now and then be heard. They
were good, rounded, healthy screams. It seemed the birth was going
perfectly.

Carem saw a woman approaching through his gardens. He took her for
a servant bringing roast lamb and date leaves. He smiled and poured a little
wine on the ground, an old custom, for the child to be.

THESE BEASTS

Something caught Carem's eye then. It was his fine dark shadow. How
bold it was. How black.

Carem studied this. He noticed, oh yes, that some curious anangement
of the awning, or the arbor trees, had caused his shadow to take on a peculiar
shape. It had two upright ears. Its nose was very long.

As Carem was pondering this, the servant woman came up to him. She
was not his servant, but a squat female, veiled, with the sun shining through
her. Around her neck gleamed faintly a rope of yellow stones.

"I am your dead wife," said Bisint's uncomely ghost, unnecessarily. "I
have arrived to warn you."

"That was most kind. Of what?"

"Hark."

Carem harkened, and heard another loud scream from the house.

"Yes," said Carem. "That is Zulmia."

"Indeed," said Bisint, "and she does well to scream. O stupid Carem,
what did you bring away from the Tomb of the Black Dog?"

It was random to lie to or upbraid a ghost. "Some trinkets," he replied.

"What else, O stupid Carem?"

"Nothing."

"Yes."

"Only I, myself."

"Stupid, stupid Carem," emphasized Bisint, and disappeared.

Carem looked down for his shadow, that had pointed ears and a snout.
It too had vanished.

A particularly awful scream rocked through the air.

Carem glanced at his mansion.

Zulmia's windows, which were hung with crystal clear cloth, turned
suddenly violently red. More, they appeared wet.

Then came other screams, the shrieks of women and the bawling of men.

A noted physician sprang suddenly out of the window. He fell down
among the lemon trees.

Carem rose and went toward him.

"What, pray, goes on?"

"Your wife is delivered," said the physician. He had broken both his legs,
but paid them no heed. His robe, like the window hangings, was soaked by
blood.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

"A boy or a girl?" asked Carem.

"Neither. I will tell you," said the physician, "since I cannot run away.
Something tore itself from the womb of your wife, up out of her belly. It burst
her like an orange. It was dark. It had a pointed snout.

Carem turned from the physician and gazed at the doorway of his house.

From the golden inner walk, something black was coming. It was tall and
lean and moved lightly on its hind limbs.

Nothing had he brought from the Tomb of the Black Dog, save his loot
and his body, with every aperture blocked. But one. One too small indeed to
fill. And the shadow had gone with him. The shadow had run out of him, there
among the roses.

From Carem's doorway stepped Anubar, Biter of Souls. He was black as
night, in the mid of day. His ears stood up. His snout was long. In His clawed
paws lay the remains of Zulmia's womb and round His feet, like bracelets
were wrapped the entrails of others. He ripped the physician's body in half,
in passing. Then stared at Carem, who bowed low and waited for death.

As well he might.

Take, a good look at the enemy, gentlemen.

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In addition to writing columns for us, Charles de Lint writes excellent fiction. Tor
has just published The Ivory and the Horn, a collection of his Newford short stories.
Charles is also Writer in Residence at the Ottawa and Gloucester Public Libraries.

Every holiday season, Charles de Lint sends a short story in a chapbook to his
friends. Some of those stories have been reprinted in the Year's Best Fantasy and
Horror. Others have appeared here or in Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine. “Coyote
Stories" was Charles’s gift to his friends in the winter of 1993-1994. We'rehappy to
share the story with you.

Coyote Stories

By Charles de Lint

Four directions blow the sacred winds
We are standing at the center
Every morning wakes another chance
To make our lives a little better

— Kiya Heartwood,
from "Wishing Well"

HIS DAY COYOTE IS FEELING

pretty thirsty, so he goes into Joey's Bar,
you know, on the comer of Palm and
Grasso, across from the Men's Mission,
and he lays a nugget of gold down on the counter, but Joey he won't serve him.

"So you don't serve skins no more?" Coyote he asks him.

"Last time you gave me gold, it turned to shit on me, " is what Joey says.
He points to the Rolex on Coyote's wrist. "But I'll take that. Give you change
and everything."

Coyote scratches his muzzle and pretends he has to think about it. "Cost
me twenty-five dollars," he says. "It looks better than the real thing."

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

"I'll give you fifteen, cash, and a beer."

"How about a bottle of whiskey?"

So Coyote comes out of Joey's Bar and he's missing his Rolex now, but
he's got a bottle of Jack in his hand and that's when he sees Albert, just around
the comer, sitting on the ground with his back against the brick wall and his
legs stuck out across the sidewalk so you have to step over them, you want
to get by.

"Hey, Albert," Coyote says. "What's your problem?"

"Joey won't serve me no more."

"That because you're indigenous?"

"Naw. I got no money."

So Coyote offers him some of his whiskey. "Have yourself a swallow,"
he says, feeling generous, because he only paid two dollars for the Rolex and
it never worked anyway.

"Thanks, but I don't think so," is what Albert tells him. "Seems to me
I've been given a sign. Got no money means I should stop drinking."

Coyote shakes his head and takes a sip of his Jack. "You are one crazy
skin," he says.

That Coyote he likes his whiskey. It goes down smooth and puts a gleam
in his eye. Maybe, he drinks enough, he'll remember some good time and
smile, maybe he'll get mean and pick himself a fight with a lamp post like he's
done before. But one thing he knows, whether he's got money or not's got
nothing to do with omens. Not for him, anyway.

But a lack of money isn't really an omen for Albert either; it's a way of
life. Albert, he's like the rest of us skins. Left the reserve, and we don't know
why. Come to the city, and we don't know why. Still alive, and we don't know
why. But Albert, he remembers it being different. He used to listen to his
grandmother's stories, soaked them up like the dirt will rain, thirsty after a
long drought. And he tells stories himself, too, or pieces of stories, talk to you
all night long if you want to listen to him.

It's always Coyote in Albert's stories, doesn't matter if he's making them
up or just passing along gossip. Sometimes Coyote's himself, sometimes he's
Albert, sometimes he's somebody else. Like it wasn't Coyote sold his Rolex
and ran into him outside Joey's Bar that day, it was Billy Yazhie. Maybe ten
years ago now, Billy he's standing under a turquoise sky beside Spider Rock

COYOTE STORIES

one day, looking up, looking up for a long time, before he turns away and
walks to the nearest highway, sticks out his thumb and he doesn't look back
till it's too late. Wakes up one morning and everything he knew is gone and
he can't find his way back.

Oh that Billy he's a dark skin, he's like leather. You shake his hand and
it's like you took hold of a cowboy boot. He knows some of the old songs and
he's got himself a good voice, strong, ask anyone. He used to drum for the
dancers back home, but his hands shake too much now, he says. He doesn't
sing much anymore, either. He's got to be like the rest of us, hanging out in
Fitzhenry Park, walking the streets, sleeping in an alleyway because the
Men's Mission it's out of beds. We've got the stoic faces down real good, but
you look in our eyes, maybe catch us off guard, you'll see we don't forget
anything. It's just most times we don't want to remember.

This Coyote he's not too smart sometimes. One day he gets into a fight
with a biker, says he going to count coup like his plains brothers, knock that
biker all over the street, only the biker's got himself a big hickory-handled
hunting knife and he cuts Coyote's head right off. Puts a quick end to that
fight. I'll tell you. Coyote he spends the rest of the afternoon running around,
trying to find somebody to sew his head back on again.

"That Coyote, " Jimmy Coldwater says, "he's always losing his head over
one thing or another."

I tell you we laughed.

But Albert he takes that omen seriously. You see him drinking still, but
he's drinking coffee now, black as a raven's wing, or some kind of tea he brews
for himself in a tin can, makes it from weeds he picks in the empty lots and
dries in the sun. He's living in an abandoned factory these days, and he's got
this one wall, he's gluing feathers and bones to it, nothing fancy, no eagles'
wings, no bear's jaw, wolf skull, just what he can find lying around, pigeon
feathers and crows', rat bones, bird bones, a necklace of mouse skulls strung
on a wire. Twigs and bundles of weeds, rattles he makes from tin cans and
bottles and jars. He paints figures on the wall, in between all the junk.
Thunderbird. Bear. Turtle. Raven.

Everybody's starting to agree, that Albert he's one crazy skin.

Now when he's got money, he buys food with it and shares it out.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

Sometimes he walks over to Palm Street where the skin girls are working the
trade and he gives them money, asks them to take a night off. Sometimes they
take the money and just laugh, getting into the next car that pulls up. But
sometimes they take the money and they sit in a coffee shop, sit there by the
window, drinking their coffee and look out at where they don't have to be for
one night.

And he never stops telling stories.

"That's what we are," he tells me one time. Albert he's smiling, his lips
are smiling, his eyes are smiling, but I know he's not joking when he tells me
that. "Just stories. You and me, everybody, we're a set of stories, and what
those stories are is what makes us what we are. Same thing for whites as skins.
Same thing for a tribe and a city and a nation and the world. It's all these stories
and how they braid together that tells us who and what and where we are.

"We got to stop forgetting and get back to remembering. We got to stop
asking for things, stop waiting for people to give us the things we think we
need. All we really need is the stories. We have the stories and they'll give us
the one thing nobody else can, the thing we can only take for ourselves,
because there's nobody can give you back your pride. You've got to take it
back yourself.

"You lose your pride and you lose everything. We don't want to know
the stories, because we don't want to remember. But we've got to take the
good with the bad and make ourselves whole again, be proud again. A
proud people can never be defeated. They lose battles, but they'll never
lose the war, because for them to lose the war you've got to go out and kill
each and every one of them, everybody with even a drop of the blood. And
even then, the stories will go on. There just won't be any skins left to hear
them."

This Coyote he's always getting in trouble. One day he's sitting at a park
bench, reading a newspaper, and this cop starts to talk big to one of the skin
girls, starts talking mean, starts pushing her around. Coyote's feeling chival-
rous that day, like he's in a white man's movie, and he gets into a fight with
the cop. He gets beat up bad and then more cops come and they take him away,
put him in jail.

The judge he turns Coyote into a mouse for a year so that there's Coyote,
got that same lopsided grin, got that sharp muzzle and those long ears and the

COYOTE STORIES

big bushy tail, but he's so small now you can hold him in the palm of your hand.

"Doesn't matter how small you make me," Coyote he says to the judge.
"I'm still Coyote."

Albert he's so serious now. He gets out of jail and he goes back to living
in the factory. Kids've torn down that wall of his, so he gets back to fixing it
right, gets back to sharing food and brewing tea and helping the skin girls out
when he can, gets back to telling stories. Some people they start thinking of
him as a shaman and call him by an old Kickaha name.

Dan Whiteduck he translates the name for Billy Yazhie, but Billy he's not
quite sure what he's heard. Know-more-truth, or No-more-truth?

"You spell that with a 'K' or what?" Billy he asks Albert.

"You take your pick how you want to spell it," Albert he says.

Billy he learns how to pronounce that old name and that's what he uses
when he's talking about Albert. Lots of people do. But most of us we just keep
on calling him Albert.

O NE DAY this Coyote decides he wants to have a pow-
wow, so he clears the trash from this empty lot, makes the
circle, makes the fire. The people come but no one knows
tbe songs anymore, no one knows the dmmming that the
dancers need, no one knows the steps. Everybody they're just standing
around, looking at each other, feeling sort of stupid, until Coyote he starts
singing, Ya-ha-hey, ya-ha-hey, and he's stomping around the circle, kicking
up dirt and dust.

People they start to laugh, then, seeing Coyote playing the fool.

"You are one crazy skin!" Angie Crow calls to him and people laugh
some more, nodding in agreement, pointing at Coyote as he dances round and
round the circle.

But Jimmy Coldwater he picks up a stick and he walks over to the drum
Coyote made. It's this big metal tub, salvaged from a junkyard, that Coyote's
covered with a skin and who knows where he got that skin, nobody's asking.
Jimmy he hits the skin of the drum and everybody they stop laughing and look
at him, so Jimmy he hits the skin again. Pretty soon he's got the rhythm to
Coyote's dance and tJien Dan Whiteduck he picks up a stick, too, and joins
Jimmy at the drum.

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

Billy Yazhie he starts up to singing then, takes Coyote's song and turns
it around so that he's singing about Spider Rock and turquoise skies, except
everybody hears it their own way, hears the stories they want to hear in it.
There's more people drumming and there's people dancing and before anyone
knows it, the night's over and there's the dawn poking over the roof of an
abandoned factory, thinking, these are some crazy skins. People they're lying
around and sitting around, eating the flatbread and drinking the tea that
Coyote provided, and they're all tired, but there's something in their hearts
that feels very full.

"This was one fine powwow," Coyote he says.

Angie she nods her head. She's sitting beside Coyote all sweaty and hot
and she'd never looked quite so good before.

"Yeah," she says. "We got to do it again."

We start having regular powwows after that night, once, sometimes
twice a month. Some of the skins they start to making dancing outfits, going
back up to the reserve for visits and asking about steps and songs from the old
folks. Gets to be we feel like a community, a small skin nation living here in
exile with the mins of broken-down tenements and abandoned buildings all
around us. Gets to be we start remembering some of our stories and sharing
them with each other instead of sharing bottles. Gets to be we have
something to feel proud about.

Some of us we find jobs. Some of us we try to climb up the side of the
wagon but we keep falling off. Some of us we go back to homes we can hardly
remember. Some of us we come from homes where we can't live, can't even
breathe, and drift here and there until we join this tribe that Albert he helped
us find.

And even if Albert he's not here anymore, the stories go on. They have
to go on, I know that much. I tell them every chance I get.

See, this Coyote he got in trouble again, this Coyote he's always getting
in trouble, you know that by now, same as me. And when he's in jail this time
he sees that it's all tribes inside, the same as it is outside. White tribes, black
tribes, yellow tribes, skin tribes. He finally understands, finally realizes that
maybe there can't ever be just one tribe, but that doesn't mean we should stop
trying.

COYOTE STORIES

But even in jail this Coyote he can't stay out of trouble and one day he
gets into another fight and he gets cut again, but this time he thinks maybe
he's going to die.

"Albert, " Coyote he says, "lam one crazy skin. I am never going to leam,
ami?"

"Maybe not this time," Albert says, and he's holding Coyote's head and
he's wiping the dribble of blood that comes out of the side of Coyote's mouth
and is trickling down his chin. "But that's why you're Coyote. The wheel goes
round and you'll get another chance."

Coyote he's trying to be brave, but he's feeling weaker and it hurts, it
hurts, this wound in his chest that cuts to the bone, that cuts the thread that
binds him to this story.

"There's a thing I have to remember," Coyote he says, "but I can't find
it. I can't find its story...."

"Doesn't matter how small they try to make you," Albert he reminds
Coyote. "You're still Coyote."

"Ya-ha-hey," Coyote he says. "Now I remember."

Then Coyote he grins and he lets the pain take him away into another
story.

“Coyote Stories" originally appeared as a Triskell Press chapbook, December
1993, in an edition of 125 copies. Copyright (c) 1993 by Charles de Lint.

Grateful acknowledgments are made to Kiya Heartwood for the use of a verse
of “Wishing Well" from her album True Frontiers. Copyright (c) 1993 by Kiya
Heartwood; lyrics reprinted by permission.

Films

KATHI MAIO

A FLOP ABOUT A FAILURE

IM BURTON

I has pulled in some

I impressive num-

bers at the box of-
fice during his still young career as a
film director. Not all of his films
have equalled the megabit status of
his Batman flicks, but he hasn't had
any real bombs. Until now. As I write
this, it is apparent that Burton's af-
fectionate biographical flick, Ed
Wood, although still playing at a few
art houses, is going to do very, very
poorly.

It makes me sorry. Like many
other critics, I found the film to be
entertaining and beautifully made,
with several excellent performances
(notably, the much-lauded support-
ing performance of Martin Landau as
Bela Lugosi). Still, there is something
oddly appropriate about Ed Wood
becoming one of the biggest high-'
profile flops of the year, since the
title character of the film is a film
director who, himself, is famous for
failure.

Edward Wood, Jr. is repeatedly
cited as "the world's worst film di-
rector." Such a label constitutes a
claim to fame of sorts, hence the
biopic. But I have personally never
believed it to be true. First of all, the
world is a big place. But even if you
assume the worst films of this planet
come from the U.S., Mr. Wood's
strange little B-movies can't even
come close to being the worst, be-
cause, in their own inept and bizarre
way, they come from the heart.

Films that are produced out of
arrogance, springing from an out-of-
control "artistic" ego (Michael
Cimino's Heaven’s Gate is the most
infamous example of this), are much
worse than anything Ed Wood ever
created. So, too, are the cynical films
that palm off poor writing and direc-
tion, not because the filmmakers
don't know any better, but because
they assume that their audience
doesn't know any better.

To my mind, a film like Demo-
lition Man (1993) makes Ed Wood's

FILMS

trashy movies look mighty good. For
that Sly Stallone vehicle had a size-
able budget and real star actors. Pro-
ducer Joel Silver and friends, Direc-
tor Marco Brambilla, and screen-
writers Daniel Waters, et al., had
great resources to draw upon, and
they still created a film that was loud
and stupid and, within a half hour,
extremely tedious.

Demolition Man exhibited little
respect for itself. None for its view-
ers. Mr. Silver and his dream team
assumed that their audience wouldn't
know a good movie if it jumped off
the screen and karate-chopped them
upside their head. They were wrong.
In relation to the costs of making it.
Demolition Man was a major box
office disappointment.

Mr. Wood, who never had the
security or assets of a major studio
behind him, created his movies on a
(broken) shoestring, with amateur-
ish actors fumbling around on ram-
shackle sets. But you don't become a
cult favorite for nothing. There is
something fascinating about Ed
Wood's strange little movies, because
they are ridiculously inventive and
flamboyantly bad.

Not all of his early films — those
of his "prime," made before failure
sent him deeper into the bottle and a
pathetic existence in pornography —
were directed by Wood. But they are

all his. They are all botched, bun-
gling exercises in cinema. Yet they
still retain the power to entertain.

His girl juvie flick. The Violent
Years (1956), for example, was di-
rected by someone else, namely Wil-
liam M. Morgan. Mr. Morgan's direc-
tion is no better (or worse) than Mr.
Wood's. But it is Wood's inventively
sleazy writing that you remember.
His heroine, Paula, is so sad and an-
gry at the neglect of her well-to-do
parents that she leads a girl gang in
her spare time — and she has way too
much spare time.

Paula's gang not only does the
standard j.d. stuff (robbing gas sta-
tions and having shoot-outs with the
police), they also indulge in kinkier
activity. One evening, Paula is so
bored that she attacks a couple at
lovers' lane and orders the smooching
girl to strip off her sweater — Mr.
Wood had a thing for women's sweat-
ers, after all — and then takes the
necking lad further into the woods
and has her way with him.

The Violent Years is absurd, but
not boring. And the same is true of
the films Mr. Wood is most famous
for, all of which might be considered
science fiction/fantasy/horror. The
fact is that Wood couldn't help him-
self from straying into the fantastical,
whether it was appropriate to his
story or not.

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

Wood's autobiographical film,
Glen oi Glenda ( 1 953 ), which exploi-
tation producer George Weiss thought
was going to be a rip-off of Christine
Jorgenson and transsexualism, turned
out to be Wood's very personal plea
for tolerance about male trans-
vestism. It's a pseudo-clinical
docudrama, but at the same time it's
— believe it or not — a fantasy film.

Wood wanted to give work to his
friend and hero, Bela Lugosi. But he
knew enough not to try to put his
hero in silk sheath and high heels.
And so, from an easy chair, Lugosi
plays "the Spirit," a puppet-master
who meddles in the lives of humans.
While Wood himself acts out the
main plot as a confused cross-dress-
ing hero, Lugosi appears from time to
time, muttering about "the big green
dragon that sits on your doorstep"
who "eats little boys, puppy dog tails
and big fat snails."

It's as kooky a film as you're
likely to ever see. Dependent, by ne-
cessity, upon stock footage. Wood
used it to surreal advantage. In one of
Ed's most memorable screen mo-
ments, we watch Bela's tired, fanati-
cal face exclaim "Pull the String!"
while a stock clip of a buffalo stam-
pede fills the bottom of the screen.
It's an image you might shake your
head over, but you probably won't
nod off while you watch it. (The

same cannot be said for the likes of
Demolition Man.)

And that's the way it is with all
of Ed Wood's flabbergasting films. In
Bride of the Monster (1955), Bela
played a mad scientist — is there any
other kind? — Dr. Eric Vomoff, who
wanted to make a "race of atomic
supermen" to cheer his lonely exile,
but ended up with a pile of corpses
instead. He's not, it seems, a very
skilled mad scientist!

Bride also starred the massive Tor
Johnson as Lobo, Bela's zombie servant
(and his one semi-successful zapee),
who would bring home to his master
any hapless soul who wandered near
VomofPs house. That is, unless a deep-
sea octopus (stock footage alert!) that
does a man-eating impersonation of an
alligator in a near-by inland swamp,
doesn't get to them first.

It's a strange tale, ineptly per-
formed. Bride of the Monster has a
clearer narrative structure than most
of Wood's films, but that isn't ex-
actly a selling point with Ed Wood's
fans. That is why most Wood aficio-
nados consider his magnum opus to
be an intergalacticgraverobber movie
called Plan 9 from Outer Space.

As befits a counter-classic of the
first order, there is considerable lore
concerning the making of Plan 9 —
much of which is detailed in Burton's
biopic and earlier in Rudolph Grey's

FILMS

fascinating (if suitably self-contra-
dictory) oral biography of Wood,
Nightmare of Ecstasy.

There are the stories about what
an independent filmmaker some-
times has to do to get funding. (Forget
about a "casting couch," what if you
had to dunk yourself in a baptism
pool?) And there are the tales about
the challenge of completing a film
even when the star dies before you
begin principal photography. (Ed's
solution: To use the few meaningless
shots he had of Bela Lugosi entering
and exiting his little bungalow, etc.,
then convince his wife's chiroprac-
tor to play the actual part of the
monstrous recently risen with a cape
pulled up over most of his face
through the entire movie.... As if
that could hide the fact that Dr. Tom
Mason was younger, slimmer, and a
head taller than poor old Bela!)

How could you not love a movie
with stories like that behind it? We
are talking about a film that opens
with the Amazing Criswell ponder-
ously predicting that "future events
such as these will affect you in the
future." As the film continues, we
watch, dumbfounded, as aliens — all
of whom look like waiters from a
Hungarian restaurant — attempt to
take over the earth, starting with the
dead. (Good plan.)

And the dearly departed are such

intriguing body types! There is
Wood's fave, giant Tor, in another
zombie part — this time as a dead
cop. There is the ooky, cinch- waisted,
black-clad Vampira as Bela's dead
wife. And then there is Dr. Tom,
impersonating the great horror star,
Lugosi.

The risen dead plod around si-
lently, almost aimlessly. But Tor,
Vampira, and Dr. Tom can comfort
themselves with the fact that their
performances are much stronger than
any of the people who are forced to
utter Mr. Wood's dialogue.

Yes, Plan 9 from Outer Space is
bad. Really bad. But, as such, it is the
epitome of the Z-grade science fic-
tion and horror films most of us
watched when we were younger.
Don't such films deserve to be pre-
served and re-watched? I think so.
They're a sentimental treasure, as
well as an absolute hoot. And that is
why the tape and laser disk re-release
of Mr. Wood's works, spurred by the
theatrical release of Ed Wood, is such
a blessing.

And what of Ed Wood, the
movie? It is some of Mr. Burton's best
work. Clearly, he could relate to a
filmmaker who made singular hor-
ror/fantasy films, and who idolized
(and eventually employed) a great
horror actor from an earlier day.
Burton's own fascination with

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

Vincent Price — as evidenced in his
earliest film, a short called Vincent,
his loving use of Mr. Price in the film
Edward Scissorhands, and the, as yet
unreleased, interview-documentary
Burton has done on Vincent Price's
life and career — make for an obvious
parallel.

And it wasn't one lost on Ed
Wood's writers, Scott Alexander and
Larry Karaszewski. Although the two
screenwriters were originally inter-
ested in convincing director Michael
Lehmann to make a film about Wood.
(The idea that a biopic about the
world's worst director wouldbe writ-
ten by the men who penned the Prob-
lem Child movies, and directed by
the man who made Hudson Hawk,
appealed to them.) But when Tim
Burton said he wanted to make the
film, the two jumped at the chance.
And wrote their screenplay with an
emphasis on the relationship of Wood
and Lugosi, specifically to resonate
with the director's own experiences.

The resulting script is, indeed,
an endearing love story between a
man and his mentor. And its detail-
ing of Ed's directorial denial, his pen-
chant for cross-dressing, and his demi-
monde of ghoulish eccentrics and
radically untalented showbiz
wannabes, certainly makes for a story
you haven't seen fifty times before.
Ed Wood is both funny-ha-ha and

funny-peculiar, and is sumptuously
shot in glorious black and white.

Johnny Depp is marvelous as the
awful auteur. My only complaint is
that the writers didn't allow him to
express any of the self-doubt and des-
peration Mr. Wood must have felt
(when he wasn't publicly putting the
most positive spin on his dubious
film career). Depp has said that Bur-
ton used to whisper "Andy Hardy"
into his ear, between takes. And his
performance certainly captures that
"Come on, kids! Let'sputonashow!"
enthusiasm for moviemaking.

Ed Wood's supporting cast,
which includes Sarah Jessica Parker,
Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, and
Bill Murray, is also excellent. And, as
I indicated earlier, Mr. Landau's per-
formance as the frail, dignified actor
(and morphine addict), Bela Lugosi, is
a wonder.

So why did Ed Wood do so badly?
I have ruminated upon that question
for a while.

First off, most moviegoers don't
like movies about making movies.
Hollywood keeps making them be-
cause filmmakers are a self-obsessed
lot, fascinated with their own lives.
Audiences feel differently.

Moreover, too much was made
of how BAD Mr. Wood's movies are.
Those who haven't seen Plan 9 —
and who have never realized that

FILMS

there are rotten pictures, and then
there are Rotten Pictures — probably
never understood v/hat all the fuss
was about. Why make a movie about
a man who failed? Why, it's posi-
tively un-American to celebrate any-
one but the best and the brightest!

Many potential viewers probably
heard that the film was about a male
cross-dresser who wasn't the kind of
raging La Cage Aux Folles queen
they enjoy laughing at. And they were
turned off by the idea of a straight guy
in an angora sweater. No doubt many
were also turned off by the fact that
the film is in black and white. (The
studios told Burton that no one
wanted to see black and white any-
more. Sadly, they are probably right.)

And then there is the key question
folks at the cineplex ticket booth must

have asked themselves: How can you
make a good movie about bad movie-
making? I don't know how, I only know
for a fact that it can be done. The feat
was accomphshed, a little over a year
ago, with Joe Dante's Matinee (which
also did poorly at the box office). Like
Mr.Dante'shomagetoschlockmeisters
like William Castle, Mr. Burton's Ed
Wood is an excellent movie about the
wacky world of lousy science fiction
and horror film.

May it find an audience who can
appreciate its delights in the video
and cable markets. Ed Wood deserves
to achieve the kind of cult classic
status that Plan 9 now has. And it
also warrants recognition as one of
the best films of 1994. Box office
receipts shouldn't be the only mea-
sure of success — or of failure.

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'The String" marks Kathleen Ann Goonan's first appearance in F&SF. Her short
fiction has appeared in Asimov's, Amazing Stories, Interzone, and Tomorrow
Magazine. Her first novel Queen City Jazz, came out from Tor last year.

About this story, she writes, “The only correlation in this story to real life is that
about ten years ago my own father retrieved a tangled kite string from a tree and set
to work, following the rules in the story. And whoknows what mighthavehappened,
had not an overzealous hotel housekeeper disposed of it by mistake . "

The String

By Kathleen Ann Goonan

TpX AN TRIED TO IGNORE THE
I I 1 sadness which pervaded him whenever
I J M he and Jessica did something fun to-
gether. He smiled at her and her smile
said, "Don't worry, Dad, it's all right."

She was much more grown-up than he. But that's what a fatal illness
often did to a child, the doctors told him.

Cincinnati was always cool in spring, and often overcast. Dan squinted
at the sky as he unrolled the brilliant dragon kite Jessica had picked out and
snared its breast with a string.

"Come on. Dad," she said, hopping from one foot to another. "What's
taking you so longl "

"I'm kind of concerned about those trees," he said. Huge oaks sur-
rounded the ball field across the street from their house, but it was the clearest
place around. The gusting wind held the sweet tang of rejuvenation. How
many springs would his daughter see? He had to try to knot the string twice;
his hand trembled the first time and he missed poking it through.

THE STRING

Jessica was short for her age, eight, and she wheezed a lot. Dan knew she
would be dead in a few years but tried not to think about it too much. He
wouldn't live forever either. Anita was bitter about their daughter having
cystic fibrosis, and seemed to want to blame it all on Dan, even though she
knew that it took recessive genes from both parents.

Jessica lifted the kite, and its fanciful wings filled with wind. "It's
gorgeous," she said. "Purple, red, and yellow."

He smiled at her, and she grinned back, her pale brown hair flying out
from the hat pulled over her ears, her green eyes full of knowledge no child
should have to bear, learned as she lay gasping for breath in an endless stream
of anonymous hospital beds, stuck full of needles which dripped experimen-
tal drugs which never worked into her veins, which were getting harder and
harder to find.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked.

He watched the string run through her hands as the wind took the kite.
She played it out until the dragon floated high and small, then began to play
with it, making it swoop, its long tail swirling like invisible writing on the
gray sky.

Then she shrieked as a stronggust pulled the end of the string, which Dan
had wrapped around a stick, from her hand. The dragon hung suspended for
a moment, then zigzagged and plummeted into an oak tree.

"Oh no," said Jessica, looking stunned.

"It's okay, "he said. He climbed the tree, cut the string with his penknife,
pulled the kite from the branches, and tossed it down to the ground. It was
a little ripped up, but he thought he could fix it.

When he was almost down, he saw the tangled string, stuck in a lower
branch. He reached over, worked it loose, and stuck it in his pocket. Then,
holding hands, he and Jessica walked back to the old house he'd lived in since
he was a child.

Later that night, when he finished putting the dishes away and Jessica
was in bed, he remembered the string, and got it out of his pocket. Anita, on
one side of the huge kitchen which served as sort of a living room too, was
entrenched in her CAD, working on some specs she'd brought home. She was
so good her firm had paid to have the computer-assisted design setup here at
home as well as at the office.

FANTASY Si. SCIENCE FICTION

She looked up. "What's that?" she asked.

"Just the kite string."

"Well, we don't need any more clutter around here. Throw it away."

Instead, Dan sat down at the table and studied it. "Look," he said, "it's
not really a knot."

"You couldn't get much more knotted than that," Anita said.

"No, look: one end stayed attached to the stick. One end stayed attached
to the kite. It's not a knot. The ends never crossed. Theoretically, it's just
a perfectly straight string."

"Right," said Anita. "Sure. That's cxflctlywhat it looks like to me. Well,
I've got to get to bed. I guess it's my turn to take Jessica to physical therapy
tomorrow," she said, with that familiar resentful edge to her voice.

"I would, but I've got a meeting in the afternoon." He was a structural
engineer. He was aware that Anita, a brilliant, moody architect, sometimes
found his methodical, dogged approach to life dull. He often wished he were
more spontaneous, but he couldn't help himself. He had long since resigned
himself to being in the background and assisting her rapidly advancing career
in any way he could

Dan sat at the table for half an hour, studying the string. Finally, he got
two knives out of the drawer and tied one end to each knife.

Then he started to pull little loops from the tight core.

Each loosening opened other possible avenues of unraveling, and he
stared into the heart of the string, more and more fascinated. Each time he
created some slack, he followed it down to the core, pulling and teasing, until
it was lost in the nest of tightness. Each time, he felt a little ping of joy when
the core of the string became more and more revealed.

It was three a.m. before he stopped, surprised at the time. How could he
have become so absorbed? He was about to untie the string from the knives
and throw it away when he stopped, smiled, and chucked the whole thing in
a drawer.' At least it was something to do.

He went to bed feeling better than he had in a long time.

When he got home from work that night Jessica ran to meet him and said,
"Guess what? My lung capacity increased."

"Is that tme?" Dan asked Anita, who was peeling carrots.

She didn't turn, but stopped what she was doing as she spoke. "That's

THE STRING

what they said," she replied, in the terribly even voice she used whenever
they discussed Jessica's medical problems. Then she went back to scraping
carrots.

"That's wonderful, pumpkin," Dan said, and picked Jessica up, tossed
her in the air. They'd learned to celebrate about anything, but this was
something extraordinary.

"Yeah," she said, laughing. She went over and opened the silverware
drawer so she could set the table. "What's this? ” she said, and pulled out the
wad of string dangling from one of the knives. "Is this the kite string?"

"Oh, Dan, I thought I told you to throw that away," said Anita.

Dan grabbed it, feeling unaccountably protective. "It's fun," he said.
"You'd have to pay a lot of money for a puzzle as good as this." He put it up
on a shelf. "Here, I'll help you set the table," he said.

After dinner, when everything was put away, Anita flipped on her CAD
again. Her work was never done. Jessica started her homework, and Dan got
his string down off the shelf and started to play with it.

It was wound quite tightly. He needed something to slide underneath the
strands and pull them. Absently, he got up, rummaged in the drawer, and got
two oyster forks. Hooking one through the central morass, he used the other
to work a loop loose.

As he concentrated, he found himself thinking not about the string, but
about Jessica. He tried to push back the relief and happiness he felt about the-
lung capacity — after all, within the progress of the disease, it only meant a
temporary surcease — but joy nonetheless that Jessica might have a time of
easier breathing, however short, flooded him. Despite himself, he imagined
her running, playing, like other children, unburdened by her constant
unnatural prescience of her own mortality. She was in the baseball field, up
to bat, her little rear end stuck out as she leaned forward from the waist,
grasping the bat. Her hair streamed back from her face. "Put 'er here," she
yelled at the pitcher.

"What are you doing, Dan?" asked Anita, as her shadow fell across the
table.

"Well,"hesaid, startled back into the present, "these are the rules. Since
the ends didn't cross when this was made, the rule is that I have to straighten
it out without pulling the ends through. They always have to stay on the
outside."

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

"Good lord," she said. "Well, it's after midnight." He looked up and saw
she had her nightgown on. "I've been in bed for an hour. You know you don't
feel good if you don't get enough sleep, and I don't know when you got to bed
last night."

"You're right," he said, and put the string up on the shelf and went to bed.

But the image of Jessica rounding the bases persisted into his dreams.

T hree weeks later, he had still not solved the string.

He worked on it nightly, much to Anita's disgust. "It's
getting dirty," she said.

One Tuesday evening, Dan looked up at a knock on
the screen door. "Frank," he said. "Come on in."

Frank Jones, a widower from down the street, did, and the door slammed
shut behind him. Crickets were gaining in volume and the smell of new-cut
grass wafted into the kitchen. Frank, a tall thin man with a good head of snow-
white hair, though he was almost seventy, put his hands on his hips and
frowned. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked.

"Behaving like a crazy man, that's what," said Anita from her terminal.
"Dad's untying the string," said Jessica as she rushed through the kitchen.
"Where do you think you're going?" asked Dan.

"I'm just going out to play hide-and-seek with the kids."

"You've got exactly fifteen minutes."

"Oh, Dad!"

"I mean it." Dan was secretly pleased. It had been years since she'd felt
well enough to keep going for so long, and now she'd be out with the
neighborhood kids well after dark each night if he didn't put his foot down.
"Oh, all right," she grumbled, and rushed out the door.

"Get a beer, Frank, and sit down," said Dan, not lifting his gaze from his
puzzle.

"Don't mind if I do." The old man opened the refrigerator, chose a beer,
and pulled up a chair made of aluminum tubing. The seat and back were
covered with marbleized dark green oilcloth.

"So what's up?"

Frank's bottle of Rolling Rock hissed as he opened it. "Ahh, nothing
much. I wish the kids lived closer, I guess. You know, I got good days and
bad days, just like always."

THE STRING

It had been three years since his wife had died suddenly of a stroke, and
Frank came in regularly to complain about the loneliness of his life, which
Dan knew was quite real.

He remembered Mrs. Jones as he bent over the string, listening to Frank's
laments. She had been a bustling, happy woman of the starched laundry
school . She raised two boys while Frank put in his thirty years at the mattress
factory, all the while tending to her massive garden and baking like a master chef.

He also remembered, quite vividly, the Joneses on their evening walk,
hand in hand, strolling down the oak-lined street daily for as long as he could
remember. He remembered Frank teaching him how to pitch a softball across
the street at the park, because his father, though an affable sort, maintained
an unfashionable dislike for the sport of the day. Frank's kind face had been
younger then, and Dan unaccountably recalled that his eyes had beamed with
happiness when, one day, he had looked right into Dan's and said, "You
know, this is a lot of fun." Dan had realized, even though he was only ten,
that "this" didn't just mean teaching him how to fake out the batter, but was
a deep and basic satisfaction and appreciation of life itself.

Dan glanced up at Frank now. He was staring out the window, and his
face looked blank and old. Dan didn't know why it had to be that way, why
life had to wash through him like a wave and recede. The old man seemed
like a discarded pot or piece of furniture, and it pained him.

He got up and went to the door. "Jessica!" he shouted. "It's been half an
hour. Get in here right now.'"

Jessica came pounding up the steps. Her cheeks were flushed in the porch
light, and she dashed in under his arm and rushed upstairs before he could say
a word.

"Kids," said Frank, but his face looked just as old and dead.

Later that night, after Anita had gone to bed — she seemed resigned now
to his odd obsession — Frank slipped into Dan's niind again. He saw the old
man happy and useful again, face bright, as he'd been right up to the day of
Stella's death. Dan was suspended in the feeling of one man's deep content-
ment with the way things were, and felt enriched by that sharing. He knew
now how rare such a feeling was.

It was only two evenings later that Frank came back. His step on the
porch was so light Dan didn't recognize it, and his face was so altered that for
a moment, looking up from his string, Dan was taken back ten years.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

"Come in," said Dan. "You look great."

Frankgot his beer and sprawled in a chair, long legs extended, and smiled.
"You know," he said, "after the other night I got to thinking about how often
I come by and whine, and decided to get up off my butt and do something for
myself. Went over to the day care on Fifth Street and they took me on as a
volunteer. I'm telling you, Dan, am I ever glad to get out of that house every
day. Didn't realize how gloomy it was with the curtains always pulled. Those
kids are so cute."

Flis face was the face Dan had imagined. In fact, his breathing stopped
for a second as he realized that he'd pictured Frank sitting here just like this,
although he'd imagined that the source of his happiness was instead a new
girlfriend.

"I bet they are," said Dan.

The clicking of computer keys in the comer stopped and Anita said, "I
wish Dan would do something besides work on that ridiculous string. He
needs to get out and do something else."

"Like what, Anita? " asked Dan, wondering at the fear he felt about being
separated from his string.

"Like a movie now and then, that's what. Or just going out for dinner.
We haven't done anything in the evening except sit here like two lumps, and
I'm getting tired of it!"

"You should have said something," said Dan, pushing the string away.
Fie was very pleasantly surprised, even if Anita was just reacting jealously to
his attention to the string. "I think we can just make the eight o'clock movie
if we hurry."

"Who's going to watch Jessica?"

"I will," said Frank. He often baby-sat, but not usually on such short notice.

"Are you sure?" asked Dan.

"Of course he's sure," said Anita, getting up in a hurry. "Now, where are
my keys?"

While he was at the movie, all Dan could think about was what his next
move would be in the unraveling of the string. He even dreamed of the string
now, and had it memorized, as if it were a chess game he could project. Yet,
whenever he loosened one segment, deeper and more complex tanglings
became apparent. Each time, instead of being frustrated, he eagerly delved
into the new mystery.

THE STRING

Dan was startled by a loud explosion. Several characters had just been
blown up, and the screen was filled with gore.

He found that for some odd reason he had to fight back tears. How could
it be possible for humans to watch so many deaths, even acted-out deaths, and
not be moved? As he watched, he thought of the war that was in the news
lately, in Nepal, as China and India battled it out with the Nepalese
Nationalists for control of the poor, mountainous country. The face of a dead
villager that he'd seen on the cover of Time replaced what was happening in
the movie. These wars would go on and on, and humanity for the most part
was as unmoved as those in the theater with him, and the victims would slide
into the vast unnamed history which held all the countless humans who had
been killed by other humans.

He found Anita's hand, and it was cold and unmoving. "Dan,” she
whispered, "Not so tight. You're hurting me."

He let go, closed his eyes, and tried to unravel the string from memory.
As he did, something white-hot began to bum inside him, anger with all the
murders, all the killing, all the pain.

He was still angry when they got home and he took the string down. He
knew that Anita was completely disgusted by the way she stomped upstairs,
but he couldn't help himself.

Faces filled his vision as he delicately pulled and probed: black and white
dead people lined up in Prudential's The World at War that his father had
watched every Sunday night, leaning against the doorjamb thoughtfully with
his lit pipe in hand; faces from the Vietnam war,- the peasant faces from a
hundred countries around the world, stolid and set, fighting for the right to
have a say in their own lives against those who made a profit from them being
powerless. He remembered the beauty of the country from a trek he'd made
in his student days, and the one healthy village he'd seen among all the poor
ones. If only all of them could prosper. He carried the image with him into
dreams asheputhishead down, just to rest for a minute, and fell asleep at the table.

The next morning, while eating breakfast, he leafed through the paper to
the international section. There it was. Three scant inches devoted to the
uprising. Jessica mshed into the kitchen. "Hey," she said, "give me that
paper!" She opened the cupboard and grabbed a bowl, slammed it onto the
table. "I forgot, I need some current events for this morning." She sloshed
milk onto her cereal.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

"Sit down," said Dan.

"I can't. I'll miss the bus."

"I'll drive you. Here. What about this revolution in Nepal."

She sidled next to him and glanced at it. "Perfect," she said. "Not too
long."

"No," Dan said. "It's definitely not too long." It said nothing about the
great privation he knew existed, nothing about the squalor, the lack of
medicine, adequate food. It said nothing about the fact that only ten percent
of Nepalese men could read, and only two percent of the women. It did not
say that the average life expectancy was thirty-six years.

Jessica read it in the car while he drove her to school.

Three days later, Jessica was back at the international page. "Now Miss
ftanshaw wants a follow-up," she said. "Some of the kids asked her what
would happen if they couldn't find anything and she said they'd better. Look,
Dad — this sure is lucky."

TREATY GRANTS SOVEREIGNTY TO NEW NEPALESE GOVERN-
MENT.

"It says that India and China have both recognized a new elected
government in Nepal," Jessica said. "That's good, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Dan, slowly. "That's very good."

Jessica looked up at him then, and looked at him a long time. "Your voice
sounds funny, " she said. "Do you have a cold? " Dan followed her glance and
saw that his right hand had clenched into a fist, with the string crushed inside.
The knuckles were white. "Careful, Dad," she said. "You'll mess up your
string."

Dan carefully kept his mind blank that night as he worked the string.
There is no connection, he thought. No connection.

He turned at a sound, and saw Jessica in her white nightgown standing
in the kitchen door. Her eyes were dark and intense; he saw that she was fully
awake.

"You really stay up late, don't you ? " she asked. "Do you think you'll ever
untangle that string?"

Dan rose and picked her up. She was big, growing so quickly now, and
he remembered when she had been a baby and hugged her close, quickly. I
hope not, was his first, reflexive thought.

THE STRING

"I don't see why not," he said.

She was almost asleep again by the time he tucked her back into bed.
Then he went to bed himself, leaving the string on the table for once.

NTTA CAME home from work in a bad mood, just as she
had for two weeks. "Damn it," she said, as she flung her
leather diskette holder onto the kitchen table, "they've
.had plenty of time to look over that museum proposal.
Mine is the best they're going to get."

"I'm sure it is, " said Dan. He'd been doing his best to keep her on an even
keel. For some reason she felt as if her entire career was riding on this one
proposal, and that if it wasn't accepted there would bean inevitable downhill
slide into obscurity.

And yet, the thought of her getting this job frightened him. Their
marriage seemed in shambles, and he felt as if that would be the last straw,
her spending as much time as she would have to on the museum.

"Oh, what do you care? " she snapped. "All you ever do is play with that
string."

Dan didn't even protest anymore. He realized that it looked silly, but it
was far past an obsession. It was simply a necessity of his life. Sometimes
it felt as if the string were playing with him as much as he played with the
string, unraveling and changing portions of his life.

For one thing, Jessica had been much improved over the summer. The
new genetic inhalant therapy they'd tried had been successful, and though
the doctors warned them that it was probably just another stopgap, research
was coming out which showed that it might constitute a very real cure for
cystic fibrosis. Dan basked in Jessica's ever-growing wellness.

The phone rang, and Anita leaped to answer it. "Yes?" she asked,
breathless. "Yes, this is Anita Brewer." There was a long silence, and finally
she said, in a dull voice, "I see."

She hung up the phone and said, "I didn't get it."

Anita's pain hit Dan so hard he couldn't breathe. "It will be all right,
honey," he said, and tried to give her a hug. Now maybe she’ll pay more
attention to me. And to Jessica.

"Oh, leave me alone, you idiot, "she said. "What do you know?" She left
the room.

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

Dan followed her, but she slammed and locked the bedroom door.

He fixed dinner for Jessica. "What's wrong with Mom?" she asked.

"She doesn't feel good," he said. "She didn't get the contract."

"Oh."

Later that night, as he played with the string, images of Anita as a
graduate student filled his mind. How radiant she had been, immersed in the
complexities of architecture, realizing for the first time that she could really
be top-notch. He'd been amazed that someone so talented could care for him,
had been overwhelmed with gratitude when she'd agreed to marry him.

It was that feeling of being on the cutting edge which pleased her, which
was her reason for life, he realized, not him,- not even Jessica.

Still, it pleased him to see her like that, filled with the power her own way
of thinking brought her, the power which came from others accepting it as
valid, praising it, giving her awards, peopling her visionary structures as they
were constructed and used. There was a truth about her which transcended
her day to day pettiness and that was what Dan loved about her, even though
his life with her could be miserable if he let her get to him.

But his image of the happy family battled with that, as if by desire he
could force their hearts and minds into some fifties sitcom of harmonious life
even if it went all frayed and off the edges. It hadn't been easy having a
terminally ill child, but Jessica was better now.

And as he worked, the vision of Anita happy in her profession receded.
She had a good job at the firm. Why couldn't she be happy with that? It was
important that Jessica have a good, stable home. Anita didn't have to work
so hard, every evening, and weekends too. She could afford to let some of that
slide.

As he worked that evening, anger slowly subsided into a self-righteous
stubbornness. But earlier than usual, Dan decided that he was too tired to
make much more headway and put it away. The bedroom door was still
locked, so he lay down on the couch and threw the afghan over himself.

The next evening, Frank came by. His footsteps on the old wood treads
of the back porch were tired and hesitant. He stood outside the screen door
for a few moments just staring, not into the room, but just staring.

Dan jumped up from the table. The string had felt dead in his hands
tonight, and he felt as if he was making no progress at all. No sooner did he

THE STRING

pull one strand out than another portion knotted even more tightly. He
opened the door and pulled Frank in. "Sit down," he said. "What's wrong?"

Frank's face worked, but he didn't cry, as Dan feared he would. Instead
he said, "One of the kids ran out in the road today and got hit by a car."

Anita looked up from across the room. "Oh, no," she breathed.

"Yeah, well, it was real lucky. Kid just bounced off the car and got a lot
of scrapes. Flew through the air onto the grass next to the road. But it was
my fault."

"It was?" asked Dan.

"Yeah," he said. "I think so. They told me it wasn't, that it was
Cassandra's job to be watching the kids, and another aide that's been there for
years, but I'd just turned away to tie somebody's shoe and this silly kid was
over the fence — kind of a wild boy, everybody says, they've been thinking
about telling his parents they can't handle him anyway — "

"So it wasn't your fault, Frank," said Dan.

"It doesn't sound like it to me," said Anita. "Don't be so hard on
yourself."

"I'm too old for this sort of thing," said Frank. "I saw him go, but you
know, I just can't move too fast anymore."

Jessica ran downstairs. "Frank!" she said, and hugged him. Then she
was out the door.

"I don't think I'm going back," said Frank. He stood and shrugged.

"You're not leaving already, are you?" asked Dan. "Have a beer."

Frank did, but they couldn't coax any more words out of him, and after
an hour he left.

When Anita shut down her computer just afterward, Dan was startled.
"So early?" he asked.

"What's the use? "she asked. "I've given it my best. I've tried as hard as
I can try. I know I've done good work. I know the proposal was excellent. I
don't know what happened, Dan. What's the point? I might as well face it.
I'm just going to be another obscure, faceless architect working in some huge
firm, pandering to the vision of some old fart prima donna all my life." She
laughed wryly. "I thought I'd be that old fart prima donna. Oh, Dan, I had so
many hopes."

That night Dan slipped the string into the drawer very early and went to
bed. He didn't get it out again the next night, or the next.

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

"Why aren't you doing your string, Dad?" Jessica asked one night.

"Oh, I just got tired of it," he said.

"Please do it some more," she asked. "I liked it when you did."

"No," he said. "It was just a silly thing."

"It wasn't," she said, and he remembered the look she had given him
from the kitchen door that night when he'd carried her back to bed.

She knew. She knew, anyway, what he thought had been happening.
They had always been so close.

He hugged her now. "It was just a string, honey. That's all. A little game
for Daddy, a puzzle. It was taking up all my time."

"Something like that should take up all of your time," she said, and he
was startled by the gravity and conviction in her voice.

Two weeks later Dan got a call at work about Jessica, who had been
suddenly unable to breathe at school. An ambulance had just picked her up.

Dan mshed to the hospital. Anita was already there, in Jessica's room.
Jessica had an oxygen mask over her face.

"They don't know what happened," she said, crying. "Oh, Dan, I just
can't stand it. I guess I was hoping that she was really better, even though it
just doesn't make sense. They kept saying that it was experimental."

Dan held her as she cried, and looked over her shoulders onto Jessica's
still face.

They decided to take turns staying with her in intensive care. Anita took
the first night, and after Dan had dropped off some clothes and books for her,
he went home to a dark, empty house.

He turned on the kitchen light, opened the drawer, and got out the string.

It was just a rough, inert mass of cord. Nothing more. He was an idiot,
a crazy man, to believe that such things were possible, no matter what the
evidence seemed to be. He bent over it for an hour or more, but found, to his
surprise, that he was crying. What had gone wrong? His little girl had been
coming alive. Now it was all back the way it was before. How many times
had they mn this hospital drill before? How many nights by her bedside while
she struggled for breath, the innocent victim of their gene sequences ? Shit on
this string, shit on this idiocy, shit on this stupid, imperfect life where little
girls died for no good reason, where genocide and hate prevailed, where
nothing was ever any good.

THE STRING

He flung it into the comer of the room and turned out the light. His heart,
when he climbed the stairs alone, was heavier than it had ever felt in his entire
life, even when they'd finally had the sweat test done on Jessica and found that
she had CF. Because it had seemed within his power, during these last few
months, to actually change things for the better, the contrast was grim and
complete.

And maybe, he thought, on the verge of sleep, it had been within his
power, and he had, quite miserably, failed. Out of selfishness and greed, as
if he were in a Grimm's fairy tale, because he had wanted his own way, his
own vision, to prevail, and because there were places of darkness in that
vision of which he could not ever be aware.

Dan woke, and the room was black.

And yet, something had happened.

His body felt light and spacious, and he wondered if he was dreaming.
Within his interior was not blood and cells, not bones and blood and muscles.

Instead, he was a tangled skein, caught by a tree limb, utterly twisted,
never to be free. He was himself that odd, unknotted yet inextricably tangled
entity, one end loose in birth and the other in death, and this strange passage
called life was an immense and tangled surprise, one which all the thought
and effort in the world, every effort which time would afford him, could not
unravel. There were certain givens in this equation, that was all.

And yet he could see, as he lay there in the dark, that this knot, this
amazement of himself, was composed of points. Point after point after point,
spilling into infinity, uncountable. Whether a myriad of intersecting planes
made soft and malleable beneath his questing fingers or a fluid, graceful line,
each point glowed, glowed so strongly in the dark so he was surprised that the
string of which he was composed did not light the room. He expected at any
moment that a nimbus would surround him, or the bed on which he lay. Or
it might come from the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the thin lace curtains, the
heavy old furniture his mother had polished for years of his life. Anywhere.
Everywhere. He was absorbed into the infinite number of points he had
become, every single one a nexus he knew he would never understand.

But he discovered that he could move them around.

And then, it was as if the string was free at every point, that each point
had an infinitesimal gap between it and the next, and impulse flew from.point

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

to point like neurons firing, only his entire body was free and loose, releasing
information, pure intelligence which was not really him, into some dark,
fathomless void, and he was fully, sharply awake.

He rose from bed and went downstairs. He didn't even have to turn on
the light to do that; forty years of navigating the house had removed every
surprise.

The string, when he flipped on the kitchen light, was still lying forlorn
in the comer, just a dirty string tied to two knives.

He walked over, picked it up, and sat at the table. And as he worked on
it once more, the pain drained from him. And every point on the string began
to glow.

He knew he wouldn't stop again.

I T WAS two weeks before they were sure that the medi-
cine was adjusted correctly and they let Jessica go home.
She was going to be all right. It was just so new that
sometimes they overshot. A lot of fine tuning to be done,

the doctors said.

When Anita came home the next day after work, she looked happy and
troubled at the same time.

"What's up?" he asked.

"It's kind of strange," she said. "I've been offered a fellowship by a
committee at Harvard. I told them it must be a mistake, that I never applied,
and they said that they simply considered the people they thought were the
best in the field and deliberated until they came to a conclusion. Dan, I'm
stunned."

"You knew you were good, "he said. "That's wonderful. So what's wrong?"
She went into the living room and sat down. "I've been meaning to tell
you for some time, Dan, but I'm such a coward."

"What is it?" he asked, feeling the chilling inevitability of the moment,
when he would have to let all his hopes and dreams and plans diverge from
what was going to happen.

For Anita.

"I'm just not happy with you," she said. "But it was easier to stay
together than not. Everything is so — settled, here. And I guess I felt guilty
about — about wanting to leave you. But now — "

THE STRING

"What about Jessica? " he whispered, because he couldn't make his voice
any louder. He was filled with fear, he realized, not just because she was
leaving but because she might take Jessica with her.

Anita sat down on the couch. "I've thought about it a lot. I've read a lot
too, Dan. It's not just me. It's hard on everyone who has a child with a
disability. You've done all the work of raising her because I've been so afraid
of getting close and then losing her. She doesn't need me like she needs you."

"She does!" he said.

"She doesn't and you know it. She needs to live here, because she has to
be close to the University. I'm not thinking about anything drastic, really. I
just want to move to Boston so I can concentrate on this project. I know it's
kind of abstract to you, but I think I can make a real difference in the field.
So many new things are happening in architecture. 1 want to be part of it."

"I know," he said as gently as he could.

She stood and looked at him very directly. "I still want to be a part of
Jessica's life."

Just not yours.

He didn't know what to say. But he had to say something.

"Don't worry," he said. "We'll work something out. I think this is the
best thing, fornow, anyway." He hoped she couldn't see how his heart ached.
But at least Jessica would be here. He could manage.

"Then it's settled," she said.

Is that all? he thought, as supper preparations brought them together, as
they had for eight years.

He realized that, oddly enough, it was.

Frank cheered him that night by dropping by, his step light once more.
"They kept calling me every day, even the kids got on the phone to tell me
that they missed me. God, I'm glad to be back there. It's great to be needed."

And every night, Dan bent over the string without even thinking of ever
unraveling it. One straight piece of string, forever tangled. The pain he felt
from Anita leaving was still just as strong, but oddly enough, it helped to
channel it into the string. It seemed to give off a cool, bright energy, when the
house was quiet, and he didn't have to think about how empty the future
would seem without her sharp energy, her presence at her CAD every night,
even her chiding tongue. He had to let her go.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

They spent the week dividing things up. Dan helped her pack. She didn't
take much, but went through all the drawers and cupboards. "I'll need these
pots," she'd say, andhe'dsay, "Take them." It was like that with everything.

On the last evening she was to be there, the scent of the blossoming
snowball bushes his mother had planted wafted in the window.

Anita and Jessica had both gone to bed. He reached up on the shelf, but
felt no string. He hoisted himself up on the counter and, kneeling, peered at
the empty shelf. Nothing.

Heart beating hard, he looked at all the knickknack shelves on both sides
of the window over the sink. He saw that Anita had taken his mother's little
horses — well, that was all right. He moved planters and statues that had been
there since he was a kid — some of them even stuck to the ancient, dusty
wood. Nothing.

Maybe he'd put it in a drawer instead. Panicking, he pulled open drawer
after drawer, rummaged through them, and then opened the lower cupboards,
completely out of his head, and started throwing the pans that were left out
onto the kitchen floor.

Anita appeared in the doorway, hair tousled from sleep. "What's
wrong?"

"What's wrong? My string is gone, that's what's wrong."

Anita was silent. Dan stared at her.

"You didn't."

"I did. I hate that string, Dan. If you hadn't sat there like a zombie with
it for the past six months, we might not have ended up like this."

Dan knew that was true, but not for the reasons she thought.

He switched on the porch light and ran outside.

Luckily, the trash hadn't been collected yet, but the pile was horrendous,
full of the debris they'd discarded in their massive housecleaning.

It was two in the morning when he finally found it, sodden with grease -
in a bag of rancid garbage.

"Thank God," he whispered.

He reverently took it into the house and filled the sink with soap and a
little bleach. He let it sit for a few minutes, careful to disturb it as little as
possible, and then carefully squished water through it and pressed it between
a towel.

He looked up, and Jessica was standing in the kitchen doorway again.

THE STRING

"You're getting to be quite a night owl," he said.

"The medicine keeps me awake, I think," she said, watching him with
wide eyes. "What happened to the string?"

"Oh," he said. "I accidentally threw it out."

She was quiet for a moment. He suspected she knew the truth.

"I'm glad you found it," she said finally. "I think the string is very
important."

Then she walked across the room and hugged him.

As she stood there, pressed against him, he held her small shoulders with
one arm, switched off the light with the other hand, and looked out the
window at the night.

It was clear and cold, and stars shimmered through the bare tree branches
which laced together in front of the glass.

He thought that all the space which surrounded them at this moment,
stretching out galaxy beyond galaxy, was nothing compared to the infinity of light,
the immense, glowing, and tangled grandeur within the two of them.

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Nina Kiiiki Hoffman is having quite a year. Two of her stories, “Skeleton Key”
(August 1993) and “Haunted Humans" (July 1994) are finalists for the Nebula. Her
novel. The Silent Strength of Stones, will appear in September, and her story “Home
For Christmas" (January 1995) has generated more discussion than any story we've
published in the last six months.

She returns to these pages with a story about divorce, marriage, and the stranger
side of love.

For Richer,
for Stranger

By Nina Kiriki Hoffinan

I 'VE NEVER BEEN CERTAIN

it was death that parted us. I used the
term as grounds in the divorce proceed-
ings, and they thought I was crazy, be-
cause Rich attended. He didn't protest it, though, so maybe he knew he was
dead too. My lawyer wanted me to go with my first choice, incompatibility,
but I held out for death.

"I think you should change your mind. Penny," Rich said to me during
recess. "You stick with this death line and we may never get asundered." He
looked so dapper and kind; I had a secret desire to faint in his arms in hopes
that he would carry me away. I think I had that desire the first time I saw him,
when he was still Rich, but it faded when I got to know him. Today he was
wearing a blue suit, gray shirt, and powder-blue tie; his dark hair curled
nicely, and the suit made his eyes look more intensely blue.

He put some quarters in the vending machine and bought me a coffee
with cream and sugar, just the way I liked it.

That's how I knew the man I married was dead. Rich never bought me
anything just the way I liked it. He bought me things just the way he liked

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

them, which inevitably meant coffee, hlack. I looked at this stranger in Rich's
clothes — in Rich's face and hands and feet — and smiled at him, thinking
mayhe not getting asundered was just the way I liked it too, a thought I
wouldn't have dared to entertain two weeks before. "Think I'll stick. Rich,"
I said, accepting the coffee.

He made that click sound between his tongue and the roof of his mouth
that meant "this is inevitable, and I approve." He used to use it for calling
horses on our weekend walks in the country — two or three quick clicks, and
the nags would come to him. His whole vocabulary had changed since he
died. "Okay, Pix," he said, to reinforce the click.

I took my coffee and went away, then, because nobody had called me Pix
since my high school sweetheart, Alan, died — two years before I met the first
Rich and married him, and six years before I met the imposter Rich who had
just bought me coffee.

How had he known? How did he know anything^ The man I married
wouldn't have been able to recognize me if I was with two other brunettes;
and this man knew my secret childhood nickname. I went into the ladies
room, threw out the coffee, and sat on a toilet (the only handy piece of
furniture), clutching my stomach, which had shooting pains in it by that
time.

Gretchen, my lawyer, found me there a few minutes later when she came
in to sweep all the escaping strands of blonde-brown hair back into her
chignon. I had left the stall door open; she saw me in the mirror. She stooped
in front of me, putting creases in her green satin skirt. "Penny, do you know
what you want? You're surely not making this easy for me."

"What do you mean?"

"Changing grounds in the middle of the case. This death business. Are
you sure you want to ditch the guy? I'm starting to suspect you don't."

"He's not the man I married," I said.

"You're divorcing the man you married," she said. "It would save steps
if you stopped the divorce — that is, if you're thinking of marrying the man
he is now. God, I can't believe the level of metaphysics involved here."

"How can I want to marry him when I don't even know him? " I said. "I
think I want to marry him."

"I'm going to go talk to his lawyer and see if we can't all throw in the
towel now," she said, "unless you think Rich might be playing a little trick

100

FANTASY ai SCIENCE FICTION

on you to get you to settle for less. I mean, if you thought he was crazy, maybe
he figures you'll be sympathetic. Maybe he figures you'll figure he has a
diminished earning capacity and shouldn't be soaked for a big alimony check
every month. Is this new him manipulating your thoughts in any of those
directions?"

"Don't be silly," I said. "The new Rich told the court about the Costa
Mesa property. Honestly, Gretchen. I had no idea he owned that land, and that
he had such a big monthly income from it. Four years and I've never heard of
it. Now he wants to give it to me as a settlement. Did you see his lawyer
jumping up and down during that part?"

"That was pretty amusing," she said. "If it was some sort of trick. Rich
has a very devious mind. I'm going to ask you one more time. Do you want
me to halt proceedings now?"

I clutched my stomach and frowned, with my eyes closed. I thought a
moment. Then I said, "I will if he will."

"I'll go check it out," said Gretchen.

The judge gave us a big scolding for wasting his time, and said we should
have thought this thing through better, and if we were incapable of thinking
about it, our lawyers should have been more responsible, and if he ever saw
us in his court again he would divorce us immediately in revenge. I couldn't
follow his logic. Rich was laughing, and that only seemed to infuriate him
more.

"Come on," I said, "Let's go home."

He had been living in his own apartment for two months — since I kicked
him out of the one we had shared. He leaned forward and looked at me.
"Really?"

I took his arm. His hesitation made me more sure than ever that he was
someone new. "Come home," I said. Now or never. We could start with an
early dinner, then see if the evening followed the old pattern or not. If he still
ended lovemaking with hurt and humiliation, I knew the judge I wanted to
see.

As we walked out of the building, Gretchen joined us. "Call me for lunch.
Penny. Don't call me for any more divorce work. I don't think my budget can
take it."

"Don't worry," said Rich.

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

101

Gretchen gave him a pointed look. "On the other hand," she said.

He grinned at her. Couldn't be Rich; Rich had no sense of humor where
my independence was concerned. He hated it if I had lunch with a girlfriend
almostmorethanhehateditwhenmyadvertisingbuddiesandiwentouttolunch.

He wrote Gretchen a check for a thousand dollars. "Just in case she needs
you again, here's a provisional retainer," he said, handing it to her.

She swallowed. "What if she doesn't?"

"For services rendered," he said.

"Penny, you witnessed that, didn't you? Now I'm going to deposit this."

"Isn't there something fishy about your taking money from your client's
adversary?"

"Not since you halted the proceedings." She blew us both a kiss and
walked off.

"I don't know. Rich," I said. "I feel funny about you paying my lawyer
for not doing anything."

"You want me to take the check back?"

"No, " I said. If it came down to divorce again, I might invoke that check
as a provisional retainer, after all. A drop in the ocean of lawyers' fees, but that
drop meant a lot more to me than it did to Gretchen or Rich. It would make
things easier.

"Your car or mine? " he asked as we went down the courthouse steps. The
day was stormy. Dark clouds looked ready to spit, though there was no rain
falling yet. I leaned closer to his warmth. He put his arm around me, with a
little hug.

"Both, I think," I said. I looked up at his face and took a chance. "You
know the way home?"

He could have run with that, one way or the other. He said, "Okay if 1
follow you?" so I still wasn't sure.

I said all right. We went to the underground city parking lot; I waited in
my little blue-and-silver Honda CRX for his black sixties Mustang to pull up
behind me, then I led the way back to the apartment we had lived in for four
good-to-worse years. He pulled into his old parking spot, but it was the one
next to mine, so I wasn't sure if that was evidence or not.

"Mr. Zamoyoski," said Tomas, the doorman. He seemed surprised, but
I couldn't tell if it was pleased or dismayed surprise. Rich smiled at him and
waved. Did Rich recognize Tomas or not?

102

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

He glanced around the lobby of the building. Pale streaky brown
linoleum for the floor, lighter brown wallpaper, two ailing palm trees near the
front window, ranks of tarnished brass-fronted mailboxes on the left wall, the
door to the staircase and to the manager's apartment on the far wall, two
elevators with a standing, sand-filled ashtray between them on the right wall.
"Who picked this place, you or me?"

"You were hving here when we got married, " I said carefully. "I moved in. "

"And you got custody of the apartment when we split up?"

I punched the "up" button on the elevator summons panel. "I was mad,"
I said.

"Good for you."

The left-hand elevator door opened and we stepped into a gray-floored,
brown-walled cube. I waited a moment to see if Rich would punch the fifth
floor button. He glanced at me, at the buttons, at me, and shrugged. I reached
past him and punched the correct button. The elevator started with its
characteristic jerk. When I was alone, I waited for the right-hand elevator; I
was always sure the left-hand one would stall. I had heard stories from our
neighbors about people trapped overnight, trapped until they ran out of air,
trapped forever in the left-hand elevator. Even if it ran all right, how could it
help being haunted? Rich had heard all the same stories, and all he ever did
was sneer at them.

We rode upward in silence. I peeked at him. Was he Rich? Was this all
a charade? If it was, Gretchen was right; he was very devious. This didn't feel
like our last ride in an elevator together, right after the breakup. The tension
then had been so strong I felt like I was walking through a snow storm all the
time, fighting wind and flying flakes. I had had problems sleeping — my mind
racing a million miles an hour, not settling anywhere. We had stood at
opposite comers of the elevator, like fighters, as we rode down, his suitcases
between us. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I had no right to ask him
to leave, that I was imagining he was being mean to me when really he wasn't,
that it was a big mistake to try to change anything this early — why couldn't
I try a little longer? Rich was always talking about compromise. Hadn't he
given up all those evenings with the boys to stay home with me? And here
I was objecting to his attentions. Didn't I love him?

I loved him, I loved him. I wasn't sure I loved him. How did anybody ever
know?

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

103

"Do you like this building?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I got used to it."

"I don't think it suits you. You'd be better off in a place with more
colors."

"What have you been studying since you left? Underground drug
culture? Rich, you're color-blind, remember? I had to safety-pin your ties to
your suits so you wouldn't clash."

"Even I can tell this place is too dull," he said after a moment.

The elevator jerked and stopped. I looked at the buttons. Both the four
and the five were flashing. "Oh, great," I said. "Finally this happens. Now
we're stuck." I pressed the five button again. Nothing happened.

He pressed the stop button.

"What good will that do?" I said. "We're already stopped."

"Thought I'd try some reverse psychology." He pressed the emergency
button. The elevator dropped an inch. I screamed and grabbed his arm. He
frowned. "Aren't these things supposed to have phones in them?"

"I'll get someone's attention, " I said, and screamed again, so loudly Rich
covered his ears; his whole face squinted, as if he had just tasted a really sour
lemon.

"Stop," he said, when I had to breathe. "You'll wake the dead."

We stared at each other, our eyes wide. I felt some situational tenseness
coming on. I had never liked small closed spaces. And here I was, alone with,
possibly, my husband, who had taken me closer to death than I cared for on
several occasions.

I gripped his lapels. "You've got to tell me, and tell me now. Are you
Rich? Are you really Rich?"

"I'm Richer."

I screamed again. "Make another pun and I'll burst your eardrums!" I
yelled.

"It wasn't supposed to be a joke."

"What happened to you? Did you just grow up? Are you playing a trick
on me? Or what?"

"Well, Fix," he said, "somebody realized you deserved better. So here I am."

"What are you saying? That you're God's gift to women?"

"Only to you, sweetheart," he said, and he looked as though he
believed it.

104

fantasy a. science fiction

"If you're better, why aren't you doing something about this elevator?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Fix it."

"Done." He banged the button panel twice and the elevator started
upward again.

"Hey! Why didn't you do that to begin with?"

"Had to exhaust the other alternatives first."

The elevator stopped with a jerk and opened its door. We were the usual
one foot below floor level. I was glad just to be alive, so I didn't gripe about
the underhang. Rich took my elbow and helped me up and out, and I pulled
him after me. "You deserve a better building," he said. "I don't know what
I could have been thinking about, having you move into this dump."

"I think we were both thinking about money," I said.

"Why?"

"As far as I knew, we didn't have much. Having a doorman seemed like
big-league stuff to me." ^

He stooped and spoke into my ear in a low voice. "I've checked out this
Rich guy's assets. He has plenty."

"You're kidding! You mean, aside from that Costa Mesa property?"

"Municipal bonds, T-bills, a small stock portfolio — all triple B's and

up."

"And you, the perfect gentleman, you didn't bring this stuff up at the
trial?"

"I was going to let them ^ill it out of me. Thought I'd sweat and protest
and look guilty as hell. I don't think your lawyer knew about it, though."

"How could she when I didn't?"

"Homework."

I unlocked the door to fifth floor apartment D. Rich followed me in,
staring about as though he'd never seen the place before, when actually the
real Rich had selected all the furniture, drapes, and carpeting with the help
of his previous girlfriend, Marcia, an interior decorator with sadistic tenden-
cies. The couch and chairs were shaped and colored something like elephant
ears bent in the middle, with spiky black legs supporting them. Under this
dingy-gray-brown furniture lurked a circular rug, cream-colored with large
orange and red spots eclipsing each other all over it. The room had made me
gasp the first time I saw it. Rich had taken that as a sign of approval.

for richer, for stranger

105

"Those are your fish," I said, pointing to a tankful of fancy goldfish, an
integral part of the living room design.

"Fish?" He made a pained face halfway to the sour-lemon face he had
made while I was screaming earlier.

"Fish. The only thing you ever really loved."

"Fish. Apparently I was a man of strange passions."

"I wanted to flush them all down the toilet for a while, but then I thought,
it's not their fault some reprehensible character bought them. I always
wondered why you didn't take them with you when you moved out, though. "

"I probably didn't really care about them. I probably just used them to
make you jealous. Before we go straight to the bedroom so I can show you all
the neat things the aliens taught me when they took over my body, how about
some coffee and a cheese plate?"

I gulped. "I thought dinner," I said.

"That would be nice." He took off his coat and draped it over the back
of a chair, then loosened his tie and unbuttoned his top button — exactly what
Rich always did when he came home, kind of a claiming ceremony, I always
thought — this is my home ground and now I can relax. "What have you got
in the kitchen?"

Feeling a little sick after seeing Rich reclaiming ground I had wrested
away from him, I put my hands to my stomach and shrugged. I had invited
him back. Why had I ever taken such a stupid risk?

He glanced around the apartment. A hallway led off to the left, a dining
alcove opened up beyond the living room, and a door was set in the right wall,
almost hidden beside the entertainment center and its accompanying book,
record, and video cassette shelves. He scratched his head. Then he skirted the
living room furniture, ducking away from the huge arrangement of dead
pampas grass fronds and peacock feathers set on a pedestal against the left
wall, and headed for the dining alcove. It opened onto the kitchen.

I took his coat and my own and hung them in the closet, behind the door
in the right wall. Hell to pay now. The man I married hated for me to step out
of line, and I had walked off the graph paper altogether, what with the divorce
proceedings and changing the apartment locks and getting the two strongest
guys from the advertising agency to stay with me while Rich packed his
things and left; I had even had them take turns sleeping on my couch for a
couple weeks, except they ended up on the floor, since the couch was less

106

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

comfortable than the mg. I had planned my escape so well. And now I just
walked back into the cage.

I could take my purse and a few things and head out the door. I could find
refuge with several people — Gretchen, even. Although I hadn't told her
everything about my relationship with Rich. I hadn't told anybody the full
extent. I tried not to know it myself. I hated victim statistics.

"Penny?" Rich peered out of the kitchen. He had his shirt sleeves rolled
up. "Where are the spices?"

I let go of my stomach, sighed, and wandered over to join him in the kitchen.

He had spread thin frozen fillets of fish on the broiling pan, and cut
uneven slices of bread off a round of sourdough. He was also mixing
something in one of the glass mixing bowls; a fork lay beside the bowl,
dripping light yellow batter. Rich had never cooked while he lived with me,
but he could have learned something from two months of neo-bachelor life
— or maybe he knew it before we got married and just concealed his ability?
"Lemon pepper, I thought," he said.

A long teasing appetizer before we got to his idea of entree, I thought. He's
going to be nice to me until I really believe this fiction of a new him, and then
the real him will come back and savage me. I should leave now.

"Are you okay. Fix?" he asked.

I went to the slender cabinet recessed into the sidewall and opened it to
reveal our well -stocked spice shelves. I picked the lemon pepper from its spot
in the center of the alphabet and handed it to him. He liked things organized
in easily understandable order, even things he never used.

He gripped my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Would you leave now, please?"

He blinked. "What, you don't like fish?"

"I like fish all right. I'm just wondering if you'd leave."

"Okay, if it means that much to you. Can we have lunch tomorrow,
then? Maybe in a public place?"

"No."

He looked at me with an injured innocent expression I knew well. He
washed his hands in the kitchen sink, then cocked his head at the fish. He
frowned and glanced at me. He dried his hands on the towel threaded through
the refrigerator handle, then looked at me and smiled. "Maybe next life," he
said, and went to the living room, with me following.

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

107

"My coat?" he said.

I pointed to the closet. He went and fetched his coat. "It was something
about the coat, wasn't it? What? " He put it on, stared at a red spot on the rug,
then glanced up at me. "Let's see. I came in," he said, going to the front door
and walking through his own actions. "Came in, took off coat." He draped it
across the chair. "Loosened tie, unbuttoned shirt. I get it. You want me to
cook in my coat?" He put the coat back on. "Sleeves in the egg batter?"

I felt a smile surface before I could stifle it.

"How am I supposed to know what you want unless you tell me? You
want me to take these goldfish away? Kill them? Get out of your kitchen?
What?"

"Just leave," I said.

"Fix."

I said nothing. He smiled, shrugged, and walked out the door. I ran across
the room and locked the door and chained it. I leaned against the door.

"I love you," he said through the door. "I love you. Penny." Then I heard
his footsteps receding down the hall.

With my back to the door I looked around at the apartment. An awful
place. Why was I defending it? I hated everything about it, though I hated the
Marcia touches more than the Rich touches. We were always too poor to
redecorate. I had asked him how he could afford this furniture in the first
place, and he had said lucky stock speculations before he met me, all dried up
now.

I turned and unlocked the door. "Rich?" I said.

He was waiting by the elevators, the "down" summons button glowing
red. He turned and looked at me.

"Can we go to a hotel?" I asked.

He smiled.

He came back while I packed some things in an overnight bag. "The fish
is just going to waste. Too late to refreeze it. Why don't I go ahead and get it
in the oven? We could eat here and then go out," he said. "This time I'll keep
my coat on. What do you think?"

"No," I said. "Let's eat out. Pretend it's a date or something. Nothing
permanent. Okay?"

"All right."

This solicitude and compliance was alien. Devious, I thought. There

108

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

ought to be some test a person could do to figure out — "Where did you go to
high school, Rich?" I asked as I folded my lavender nightgown.

"Not that one. How about the red one?"

"IVhat red one?"

He reached into the drawer and pulled out my red nightgown. It was cut
in the same pattern as three others.

"You like that one?"

"Yes," he said. He handed it to me.

He had never known what Marcia was doing with that ugly rug in the
living room. He had thought it was just neutral overlapping circles. He had
never understood why I thought the living room so uncomfortable, because
he couldn't distinguish shades of color.

"W?ho are you?" I asked.

"I can't tell you."

"Why'd you call me Fix?"

He frowned. "You look like a Fix."

"Are you going to turn back into the real Rich?"

"I don't know. I hope not."

"If there's a chance, then there's no future for us, you understand? Not
if you might suddenly be him. I have to — I have to take care of myself. I have
to protect myself."

He sat on the edge of the waterbed, his elbows on his knees, hands
dangling. Even his clothes looked defeated.

"Look," I said, "for a while I didn't understand what was happening. It
started out seeming like such a great fairytale marriage. Then things changed.
You started getting weirder and meaner in bed and around the house. It
happened so slowly I didn't really notice, until one morning I woke up and
thought, where was I four years ago? I wouldn't have let any of these things
be done to me. If someone used me the way you did, I would have drugged his
wine and beaten him up, then left him in the middle of a park without any
clothes on. When did I stop being that person who was strong enough to take
care of herself?" I let the nightgown slip from my fingers to the floor. "You
kept saying if I loved you. I'd give you another chance. If I loved you. I'd be
understanding about a few personal quirks that only happened sometimes. If
I was really a good woman... if I really knew what love meant... if you could
only beat some sense into my head...."

FOR RICHER, FOR STRANGER

109

He sat on the edge of the waterbed and looked up at me. "All those ifs?"

"Always ifs."

"If I promise to try not to if at you anymore, will you let me take you out
to dinner?"

"No strings?"

He sat up. He grinned at me. "Dinner. That's all."

He was perfect at dinner. He's been perfect for the week since. I am
terrified that I will learn to trust him. The only thing I've found worth trusting
in this life is that nobody is tmsnvorthy. Every time I forget that, I get hurt.

But he's so good now. If he is worth trusting, I would hate to miss the
opportunity.

Sometimes I wish I could turn off my head.

"Since the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence
doesn't seem to be getting anywhere ... "

A Scientist’s Notebook

GREGORY BENFORD

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

S uppose that

next to you, right
now, a pale gray
sphereappeared.lt
grew from baseball-sized to a diam-
eter as big as you — grainy, gray, cool
to the touch — then shrank to a
point... and disappeared.

You would probably interpret it
as a balloon blown up, then deflated.
But where did the flat balloon go?

Or you could realize that you
had been visited by a denizen of a
higher dimension — a four dimen-
sional sphere, or hypersphere. In three
dimensions, it looks like a sphere,
the most perfect of figures, just as a
sphere projected in two dimensions
makes a circle. The fact that this isn't
an everyday occurrence implies that
travel between dimensions is uncom-
mon, but not that it is illogical.

Probably you would not have
thought of such ideas before 1884.
That is due to the Reverend Edwin
Abbott Abbott, M.A., D.D., head-

master of the City of London School.

Respected, weU liked, he led a
strictly regular life, as proper as a
parallelogram. He had published quite
a few conventional books with titles
like Through Nature to Christ,
Parables for Children and How to
Tell the Parts of Speech. These did
not prepare the world for his sudden
excursion into the fantastic, in 1884.
Beneath his exterior he was a bit odd,
and his short novel Flatland has
proved his only hedge against
oblivion, an astonishingly prescient
fantasy of mathematics.

Abbott's oddity began with his
repeated name, which a mathemati-
cal wit might see as A times A or A
Squared, A^. Abbott's protagonist is
A Square, a much troubled spirit.
Liberated into another character,
Abbott seems to have broken out of
his cover as a prim reverend, and
poured out his feelings.

The book has a curiously obses-
sive quality, which perhaps accounts

A SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK

111

for its uneasy reception. Reviewers
termed it "soporific," "prolix,"" mor-
tally tedious," "desperately face-
tious, " while others found it "clever, "
"fascinating," "never been equaled
for clarity of thought," and "mind
broadening," and they even likened
it to GtdliveT’s Travels. This last
comparison is just, because beneath
the math drolleries lurks a penetrat-
ing satire of Victorian society.

A Square's society is as con-
strained as were the prim Victorians.
Women are not full figures but mere
lines. Soldiers are triangles with sharp
points, adept at stabbing. The more
sides, the higher the status, so hexa-
gons outrank squares, and the high
priests are perfect circles.

In a delicious irony, the upper
classes are polygons with equal sides
— but their views certainly do not
embrace equality. Mathematicians
term equal-sided figures "regular,"
and in nineteenth century terms,
proper upper class polygons are of the
regular sort.

A Square learns that his view of
the world is too narrow. There is a third
dimension, grander and exciting, but
his hidebound fellows cannot see it.
This opening-out is the central imagi-
native event of the novel, Abbott echo-
ing an emergent idea.

In the late nineteenth century
higher dimensions were fashionable.

Mathematicians had laid the founda-
tions for rigorous work in higher-di-
mensional space, and physicists were
about to begin using four-dimensional
spacetime. Twenty centuries after
Euclid, the mathematician Bernhard
Riemann took a great leap in 1854,
liberating the idea of dimensions from
our spatial senses. He argued that ever
since Rene Descartes had described
spaces with algebra, the path to discuss-
ing higher dimensions had been clear,
but unwalked.

Descartes' analytic geometry
defined lines as things described by
one set of coordinates, distances along
one axis. A plane needed two inde-
pendent coordinate sets, a solid took
three. With coordinates one could
map an object, defining it quantita-
tively: not "Chicago is over that hill. "
but "Chicago is fifteen miles that
way." This appealed more to our
logical capacity, and less to our sen-
sory experience.

Riemann described worlds of
equal logical possibility, with dimen-
sions ranging from one to infinity.
They were not spatial in the ordinary
sense. Instead, Riemann took dimen-
sion to refer to conceptual spaces,
which he named manifolds.

This wasn't merely a semantic
change. Weather, for example, de-
pends on several variables — say, n —
like temperature, pressure, wind

112

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

velocity, time of day, etc. One could
represent the weather as a moving
point in an n-dimensional space. A
plausible model of everyday weather
needs about a dozen variables, so to
visualize it means seeing curves and
surfaces in a twelve-dimensional
world. No wonder we understand the
motions of planets (which even
Einstein only needed four dimensions
to describe), but not the weather.

Riemann revolutionized math-
ematics and his general ideas dif-
fused into our culture. By 1880, C.H.
Hinton had pressed the issue by build-
ing elaborate models to further his
extra-dimensional intuition,- he tried
to explain ghosts as higher-dimen-
sional apparitions. Pursuing the anal-
ogy, he wrote of a fourth-dimensional
God from whom nothing could be
hidden. The afterlife, then, allowed
spirits to move along the time di-
mension, reliving and reassessing
moments of life. Spirits from hyper-
space were the subject of J.K.F.
Zollner's 1878 Transcendental Phys-
ics, which envisioned them moving
everywhere by short-cut loops
through the fourth dimension.

Mystics responded to the fash-
ion by imagining that God, souls,
angels and any other theological be-
ings resided as literal beings of mass
("hypermatter") in four-space. This
neatly explains why they can appear

anywhere they like, and God can be
everywhere simultaneously, the way
we can look down on a Flatland and
perceive it as a whole. Some found
such transports of the imagination
inspiring, while others thought them
crass and far too literal. I am unaware
of Abbott himself ever subscribing to
such beliefs.

Still, Abbott and his adventure-
some Square longed for the strange.
More than any other writer, Abbott
coined the literary currency of di-
mensional metaphor. By having a
point of view which is literally above
it all, surveying the follies of a two-
dimensional plane, Abbott can
adroitly satirize the staid rigidities of
his Victorian world. (Perhaps this is
why he first published Flatland un-
der a pseudonym.)

"Irregulars" are cmelly executed,
for example. Do they stand for for-
eigners? Gypsies? Cripples? We are
left to fill in some blanks, but the
overall shape of the plot is clear —
flights of fancy are punished, and A
Square does not finish happily.

At a deeper level, the book harks
toward deep scientific issues, and
the difficulty of comprehending a
physical reality beyond our imme-
diate senses. This is the great theme
of modem physics. The worlds of
relativity and the quantum are be-
yond the rough-and-ready ideas we

A SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

113

chimpanzees have built into us, from
our distant ancestors' experience at
throwing stones and poking sticks
on African plains.

Still deeper, in this fanciful nar-
rative the good Reverend tries to speak
indirectly of intense spiritual experi-
ence. The trip into the higher realm
of three dimensions is a fine meta-
phor for a mystical encounter.

The thrust of the deceptively
simple narrative is to make us exam-
ine our basic assumptions. After all,
our visual perceptions of the world
are two-dimensional patterns, yet we
somehow know how to see three-
dimensionality. One knows instantly
the difference between a ball and a
flat disk by their shading in available
light. Objects move in front of each
other, like a woman walking by a
wall. We automatically discount a
possible interpretation — that the
woman has somehow dissolved the
wall for an instant as she passes.
Instead, we see her in her three-di-
mensionality. The eye has learned
the world's geometry and discards
any other scheme.

A Square learns this lesson early
as he first visits Lineland in a dream.
The only distinction the natives can
have is in their length. They see each
other as points, since they move along
the same universal straight line. They
estimate how far away others are by

their acute sense of hearing, picking
up the difference between a bass left
voice and a tenor right; the time lag
in arrival tells the distance. The king
is longest, men next, then boys are
stubby hnes. Women are mere points,
of lower status. Their views of each
other are partial and instinctive. They
never dream of how narrowly they
see their world.

This sets the stage for A Square's
conceptual blowout when a Sphere
visits him and yanks him up into the
hallucinogenic universe of three di-
mensions. Its realities are surrealis-
tic. A Square struggles to fathom
what for us is instinctive.

The reality of three dimensions
we take for granted, but for us, what
is the reality of two dimensions?
Would flatlanders have physical pres-
ence in our world — that is, could we
perceive a two-dimensional universe
embedded in our own? Could we
yank them up into our world?

Flatlanders could be as immate-
rial as shadows, mere patterns in our
view. If an isosceles triangle soldier
cut your throat it would not hurt.
Abbott did not consider this in his
first edition, but in the second he
says that A Square eventually be-
lieves that flatlanders have a small
but real height in our universe. A
Square discusses this with the ruler
of Flatland:

114

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

I tried to prove to him
that he was "high," as well
as long and broad, although
he did not know it. But what
was his reply? "You say I
am 'high'; measure my
'high-ness' and I will believe
you." What could I do? I
met his challenge!

If flatlanders were even quite
thick, they would not be able to tell, if
in that direction they had no abihty to
move or did not vary. Height as a
concept would lie beyond their know-
able range. Or if they did vary in height,
but could not directly see this, they
might ascribe the differences to qualita-
tive features hke charisma or character
or "presence." There would be rather
mysterious forcesatworkintheirworld,
the Platonic shadows of a higher, finer
reality.

If a flatlander soldier of genuine
physical thickness attacked, it would
cut us like a knife. Otherwise, it
could not impinge upon us. We would
remain oblivious to all events in the
lesser dimensions.

In a sense, a tmly two-dimen-
sional flatlander faces a similar prob-
lem if it tries to digest food. A simple
alimentary canal from stem to stem
of, say, a circle would bisect it. To
keep itself intact, a circle would have

to digest by enclosing whatever it
used for food in pockets, opening one
and passing food to the next like a
series of locks in a canal, until even-
tually it excreted at the far end.

This is typical of the problems
engaged by thinking in another di-
mension. Not until 1910 did artists
respond to non-Euclidean spaces,
with Cubism and its theories. Mute
image and poetic metaphor, they said,
were ways of perceiving what scien-
tists could only describe in abstrac-
tions and analogies.

They were right, and many, in-
cludingPicassoandBraque, struggled
with the problem. Looking down-
ward at lower dimensions is easy.
Looking up strains us.

Visualizing the fourth dimension
preoccupiedboth artists andgeometers.
A cube in 4D is called a tesseract. One
way to think of it is to open a cubical
cardboard box and look in. By perspec-
tive, you see the far end as a square.
Diagonals (the cube edges) lead to the
outer "comers" of a laiger square — the
cube face you're looking through. Now
go to a 4D analogy. A hypercube is one
small cube, sitting in the middle of a
large cube, connected toitby diagonals.
Or rather, that is how it would look to
us, lowly 3D folk.

Cutting a hypercube in the right
way allows one to unfold it and re-
form it into a 3D pattern of eight

A SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK

115

cubes, just as a 3D cube can be made
up of six squares. One choice looks
like a sort of 3D cross. Salvador Dali
used this as a crucifix in his 1954
painting Christus Hypeicubus. Not
only does the hypercube suggest the
presence of a higher reality; Dali deals
with the problem of projecting into
lower dimensions. On the floor be-
neath the suspended hypercube, and
the crucified Christ, is a checker-
board pattern — except directly be-
low the hypercube. There, the
hypercube's shadow forms a square
cross. (Shadows are the only 2D things
in our world; they have no thick-
ness.) Comparing this simple cross
with the reality of the hypercube
which casts the shadow, we contem-
plate that our world is perhaps a
pallid shadow of a higher reality, an
implicit mystical message.

Robert Heinlein gave this a twist
with "And He Built a Crooked
House," in which a house built to
this pattern folds back up, during an
earthquake, into a true hypercube,
trapping the inhabitants in four di-
mensions. Much panic ensues.

Rudy Rucker, mathematician
and science fiction author, has taken
A Square and Flatland into myriad
fresh adventures. I met Rucker in the
1980s and found him much like his
fictional narrators, inventive and
wild, with a cerebral spin on the

world, a place he found only appar-
ently commonplace. His The Sex
Sphere (1983) satirizes dimensional
intrusions, many short stories de-
velop ideas only latent in Flatland,
and his short story "Message Found
in a Copy of Flatland" details how a
figure much like Rucker himself re-
turns to Abbott's old haunts and finds
the actual portal into that world in
the basement of a Pakistani restau-
rant. He finds that the triangular sol-
diers can indeed cut intruders from
higher dimensions, and flatlanders
are tasty when he gets hungry. As a
sendup of the original it is pointed
and funny.

In science fiction there have been
many stories about creatures from
the fourth dimension invading ours,
generally with horrific results. Greg
Bear's "Tangents" describes luring
4Dbeings into our space using sound.
While we puzzle over whether an
unseen fourth dimension exists,
modem physics has used the idea in
the Riemannian manner, to expand
our conceptual underpinnings.
Riemann saw a mathematical theme
of conceptual spaces, not merely geo-
metrical ones. Physics has taken this
idea and mn with it.

Abbott's solving the problem of
flatlander physical reality by adding
a tiny height to them was strikingly
prescient. Some of the latest quan-

116

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

turn field theories of cosmology be-
gin with extra dimensions beyond
three, and then "roll up" the extras so
that they are unobservably small —
perhaps a billion billion billion times
more tiny than an atom. Thus we are
living in a universe only apparently
spatially three-dimensional; infini-
tesimal but real dimensions lurk all
about us. In some models there actu-
ally are eighteen dimensions in all!

Even worse, this rolling up oc-
curs by what I call "wantum me-
chanics" — we want it, so it must
happen. We know no mechanism
which could achieve this, but with-
out it we would end up with unwork-
able universes which could not sup-
port life. For example, in such field
theories with more than three di-
mensions, which do not roll up, there
could be no stable atoms, and thus no
matter more complex than particles.
Further, only in odd-numbered di-
mensions can waves propagate
sharply, so 3D is favored over 2D. In
this view, we live not only in the best
of all possible worlds, but the only
possible one.

Flow did this surrealistically bi-
zarre idea come about? From consid-
ering the form and symmetries of
abstruse equations. In such chilly
realms, beauty is often our only guide.
The embarrassment of dimensions
in some theories arises from a clarity

in starting with a theory which looks
appealing, then hiding the extra di-
mensions from actually acting in our
physical world. This may seem an
odd way to proceed, but it has a
history.

The greatest fundamental prob-
lem of physics in our time has been to
unite the two great fundamental theo-
ries of the century, general relativity
and quantum mechanics, into a
whole, unified view of the world. In
cosmology, where gravity dominates
all forces, general relativity rules. In
the realm of the atom, quantum pro-
cesses call the tune.

They do not blend. General rela-
tivity is a "classical" theory in that it
views matter as particles, with no
quantum uncertainties built in. Simi-
larly, quantum mechanics cannot
include gravity in a "natural" way.

Here "natural" means in a fash-
ion which does not violate our sense
of how equations should look, their
beauty. Aesthetic considerations are
very important in science, not just in
physics, and they are the kernel of
many theories. The quantum theo-
rist Paul Dirac was asked at Moscow
University his philosophy of phys-
ics, and after a moment's thought
wrote on the blackboard, "Physical
laws should have mathematical
beauty." The sentence has been pre-
served on the board to this day.

A SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

117

One can capture a theorist's
imagination better with a "pretty"
idea than with a practical one. There
have even been quite attractive math-
ematical cosmologies which begin
with a two-dimensional, expanding
universe, and later jump to 3D, for
unexplained reasons.

Einstein wove space and time to-
gether toproduce the first true theory of
the entire cosmos. He had first exam-
ined a spacetime which is "flat, " that is,
untroubled by curves and twists in the
axeswhichdeterminecoordinates.This
was his 1905 special theory of relativ-
ity. He drew upon ideas which Abbott
had already used.

The eminent British journal
Nature published in 1920 a compari-
son of Abbott's prophetic theme:

(Dr. Abbott) asks the
reader, who has conscious-
ness of the third dimension,
to imagine a sphere descend-
ing upon the plane of
Flatland and passing
through it. How will the
inhabitants regard this phe-
nomenon? ... Their experi-
ence will be that of a circu-
lar obstacle gradually ex-
panding or growing, and
then contracting, and they
will attribute to growth in
time what the external ob-

server in three dimensions
assigns to motion in the third
dimension.Transferthis anal-
ogy to a movement of the
fourth dimension through
three-dimensional space. As-
sume the past and future of
the universe to be all depicted
in four-dimensional space and
visible to any being who has
consciousness of the fourth
dimension. If there is motion
of our three-dimensional
space relative to the fourth
dimension, all the changes
we experience and assign to
the flow of time will be due
simplyto this movement, the
whole of the future as well as
the part always existing in the
fourth dimension.

In special relativity, distance in
spacetime is not the simple result we
know from rectangular geometry. In
the ordinary Euclidean geometry ev-
eryone learns in school, if "d" means
a small change and the coordinates of
space are called x, y and z, then we
find a small length (ds) in our space
by adding the squares of each length,
so that

(ds)^ - (dx)^ + (dy)^ + (dz)^

The symbol "d" really stands for

118

FANTASY St. SCIENCE FICTION

differential, so this is a differential
equation.

Contrast special relativity, in
which a small distance in space-time
adds a length given by dt, a small
change in time, multiplied by the
speed of light, c;

(dsp = (dxp + (dyp + (dzp - (cdtp

The trick is that the extra length
(cdt) is subtracted, not added. This
simple difference leads to a whole
restructuring of the basic geometry.
The mathematician Minkowski
showed this some years after Einstein
formulated special relativity.

A thicket of confusions lurks here.
Reflect that the total small (or differen-
tial, in mathematical language) length
is (ds), found by taking the square root
of the above equation. But if (cdt) is
greater than the positive (first three)
terms, then (ds) is an imaginary num-
ber! What can this mean? Physically, it
means the rules for movingin this four-
dimensional (4D) space are complex
and contrary to our 3D intuitions. Dif-
ferent kinds of curves are called
"spacehke" and "timelike," because
they have very different physical prop-
erties.

Einstein was fond of saying that
he viewed the world as 4D, with
people existing in it simultaneously.
This meant that in 4D the whole life

of a person (their "world-line") was
on view. Life was eternal, in a sense
— a cosmic distancing available
mostly to mathematicians and lov-
ers of abstraction.

Einstein's was the first major
scientific use of time as an added
dimension, though literature had
gotten there first. By 1895 the wide-
spread use of dimensional imagery
led H.G. Wells to depict time as just
another axis of a space-like cosmos,
so that one could move forward and
back along it. In a sense Wells's use
domesticated the fourth dimension,
relieving it of genuinely jarring
strangeness, and ignoring the possi-
bility of time paradox, too.

Einstein's theory contrasts
strongly with visions such as Wells'
in The Time Machine, which treats
motion along the (dt) axis as very
much like taking a train to the fu-
ture, then back. In Einstein's geom-
etry, only portions of the space can be
reached at all without violating cau-
sality (the "light cone" within which
two points can be connected by a
single beam of light). Paradoxes can
abound.

Logical twists have inspired
many science fiction stories. The is-
sues are quite real; we have no solid
theory which includes time in a sat-
isfying manner, along with quantum
mechanics, as a truly integrated

A SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

119

fourth dimension. I spent a great deal
of space in my novel Timescape wres-
tling with how to make this intu-
itively clear, but the struggle to think
in four dimensions is perhaps beyond
realistic fiction,- perhaps it is more
properly the ground of metaphor.

Physicists began envisioning
higher dimensions because they got a
simpler dynamic picture, at the price of
apparent complication. More dimen-
sions to deal with certainly strains the
imagination, and is at first glance an
unintuitive way to think. But they can
lead to beauties which only a math-
ematician can love, abstruse elegances.
Thus Einstein, in his 1916 theory of
general relativity, invoked the simplic-
ity that objects move in "geodesics" —
undisturbed paths, the equivalent of a
straight line in Euclidean, rectangular
geometry,oragreatciicleonasphere —
in a four-dimensional space-time. The
clarity of asingle typeof curve, inretum
for the complication of a higher dimen-
sion.

Einstein's general relativity said
thatmatter curved thefour-dimensional
spacetime, an effect we see as gravity.
Thus he replaced a classical idea, force,
with a modem geometrical view, cur-
vature of a 4D world. This led to a
cosmology of the entire universe which
was expanding, and therefore pointed
implicitly backward to an origin.

Einstein did not in fact like this

featiue of his theory, and in his first
investigations of his own marvel-
ously beautiful equations fixed up
the solution until it was static, with-
out beginning or end. His authority
was so profound that his bias might
have held for ages, but Edmund
Hubble showed within a decade that
the universe was expanding.

Even so, the concept of a begin-
ning (and perhaps an end) may be an
artifact of our persistent 3D views.
Implicitly, space and time separate
in the Einstein universe. They are
connected, but can be defined as ideas
that stand alone.

The essence of talking about di-
mensions is, that they can be sepa-
rately described. But this may not be
so. At least, not in the beginning.

Even Edwin Abbott did not fore-
tell that in the hands of cosmologists
like Stephen Hawking and James
Hartle, time and space would blend.
Though the universe remains 4D,
definitions blur.

Following the universe back to
its origins leads inevitably to an early
instant when intense energies led to
the breakdown of the very ideas of
space and time. Quantum mechan-
ics tells us that as we .proceed to
earlier and earlier instants, some-
thingpeculiar begins to happen. Time
begins to turn into space. The origin
of everything is in spacetime, and the

120

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

"quantum foam" of that primordial
event is not separable into our famil-
iar distances and seconds.

What is the shape of this
spacetime? Theory permits a pro-
miscuously infinite choice. Our usual
view would be that space is one set of
coordinates, and time another. But
quantum uncertainty empts through
these intuitive definitions.

Begin with an image of a remorse-
lessly shrinking space governed by a
backward marching time, hke a cone
racing downward toasharppointTime
is the length along the axis, space the
circular area of a sidewise shce. Cus-
tomarily, we think of the apex as the
beginning of things, where time starts
and space is of zero extent.

Now round off the cone's apex to
a curve. There, length and duration
smear. This rounded end permits no
special time when things began. To
see this, imagine the cone tilted. This
model universe could be conceptu-
ally tilted this way or that, with no
unique inclination of the cone seem-
ing to be preferred. Now the "earli-
est" event is not at the center of the
rounded end. It is some spot else-
where on the rounded nub, a place
where space and time blend. No par-
ticular spot is special.

Another way to say this is that in
4D, time and space emerge gradually
from an earlier essence for which we

have no name. They are ideas we
now find quite handy, but they were
not forever fundamental.

In the primordial Big Bang, there
is no clear boundary between space
and time. Rather than an image of an
explosion, perhaps we should call
this event the Great Emergence.
There we are outside the conceptual
space of precisely known space and
well defined time. Yet there are still
only four dimensions — justnotsharp
ones.

Einstein's cosmology thus be-
gins with a time that is limited in the
past, but has no boundary as such.
Neither does space. As Stephen
Hawking remarked, "The boundary
condition of the universe is that it
has no boundary."

Perhaps Edwin Abbott would not
like the theological ramifications of
these ideas. He was of the straitlaced
Church of England. (The American
version is the Episcopal faith, which
happens to be my own. As an boy I
was an acolyte, charged with lighting
candles and carrying forth the sacra-
ments of holy communion, in red
and white robes. The robes were in-
tolerably hot in our Atlanta church,
and once I fainted and collapsed in
service — overcome by the heat, not
the ideas. I'm told it provoked a stir.)
However, it is notable that members
of that faith had a decided dimen-

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121

sionally imaginative bent, at least in
the nineteenth century; Lewis Carroll
and H.G. Wells come to mind.

No doubt, psychologically the
sharp-cone cosmological picture,
with its initial singular point sug-
gests the idea of a unique Creator
who sets the whole thinggoing. How?
Physics has no mechanism. For now,
it merely describes.

Here lurks a conceptual gap, for
we have no model which tells us a
mechanism for making universes,
much less one in which such basics
as space and time are illusions. We
need a "God of the gaps" to explain
how the original, defining event hap-
pened. These new theories seem to
bridge this gap in a fashion, but at the
price of abandoning still more of our
basic intuitions.

Much of God's essence comes
from our perceived nec^sity for a
creator, since there was a creation.
But if there is no sharp beginning,
perhaps we need no sharp, clear cre-
ator. Without a singular origin in
time, or in space for that matter, is
there any need to appeal to a super-
natural act of creation?

But does this mean we can re-
gard the universe as entirely self-
consistent, its 4D nature emerging
with time, from an event which lies
a finite time in our past but does not

need any sort of infinite Creator?
Can the universe be a closed system,
containing the reason for its very
existence within itself?

Perhaps — to put it mildly.
Theory stands mute. Yet this latest
outcome of our wrestling with di-
mensions assumes that there are laws
to this universe, mathematically ex-
pressed in a stew of coordinates and
algebra and natural beauties.

But whence come the laws them-
selves? Is that where a Creator re-
sides, making not merely spacetime
but the laws? Of this mathematics
can say nothing — so far.

Edwin Abbott would no doubt be
astonished at the twists and turns his
Lewis Carroll-like narrative has taken
us to, only a bit more than a century
beyond his initial penning of Flatland.
The questions still loom large.

So such matters progress, sharp-
ening the questions without answer-
ing them in final fashion. We can
only be sure that the future holds
ideas which he, and we, would find
stranger still.

-v Comments (and objections!) to
this column are welcome. Please send
them to Gregory Benford, Physics
Department, Univ. Calif., Irvine, CA
927 1 7. Fore-mail: gbenford@uci.edu.

It's been over a year since Ray Aldtidge appeared in our pages (“Filter Feeders,"
January 1994) and that’s toolong. Ray marks his return to themagazine withareturn
to Dilvermoon, the science fictional world in which he has set many previous stories
/orF&SF.

The strange habits of the “Spine Divers" inspired the striking cover by Ron
Walotsky, whose covers for us have earned him a Hugo nomination.

The Spine Divers

By Ray Aldridge

S o HERE I AM, BOUND TO

this rock in a grotesquely melodramatic
fashion, waiting for the tide. It's rising.
Oh, it's rising all right. I can't see the
water moving up the face of the cliff, but the waves below make a different
sound as they break, and the sound is closer, more intimate. The sun is going
down, the water is coming up.

Occasionally, overwhelmed by panic, I struggle violently against my
bonds... to no effect. The knots are impeccable, as one would expect.

I have one minor consolation. My recorders are running, preserving my
reactions to this experience. All of my fear, my regret, my anger. The feel of
the stone beneath me, the bite of the monofilament at my wrists, my ankles,
my throat. The fading flawless sky above, and at the very edge of vision a view
of the already-shadowed horizon, the ocean tilting toward me... everything
everything, into the recorders, even these pointless thoughts. The little
remote camera floats in the air above me, making an external record of my
death. Surely my friend and semi-fan Odorini will notify my agent of my

THE SPINE DIVERS

123

misfortune, and someone will come to remove the recorders from my corpse.
The publisher will hire some hack to edit the materials I've gathered on this
trip, and my creditors will be happy at last. Odorini will get a special edition,
no doubt.

The hack will probably start with this scene, or perhaps a little later,
when the waves are wetting my toes and I'm wetting my pants. Then, a
flashback to the beginning of the whole sordid business. The story in
sequence. A final external shot: my dead stare through the darkening water.

Fade out.

Actually, if my hands were free, I think I'd turn the recorders off.

The bearers carried my palanquin along the crag-top path, bare backs
shining with sweat, stinking like genuine savages. Perhaps they were... the
agency in Skull had assured me I was getting the Real Experience. But I
suspected a degree of stage dressing. For one thing, few indigenes are left along
the north Spine these days, and those lucky survivors have for the most part
found more profitable and less demanding ways to exhibit themselves. So the
sturdy barbarians who bore me south along the Spine were in all likelihood
just thin-frame mechs hung with vatted flesh. In times past the Spiners, to
discourage this scab labor, would waylay the mech bearers, bash in their
brain-boxes, carve the flesh from the frames, and have a big barbecue. A
number of stranded tourists had to walk back to Skull and several failed to
survive the trek. The tourist agencies retaliated by installing poisonou? flesh
on the next generation of mechs, which is one reason why so few real Spiners
remain in the north.

I shut down my recorders and wiped the past half-hour from memory.
This sour cynicism isn't what my subscribers want. Everyone gets enough of
that unpleasantness in their ordinary lives. Most of my fans are urban wage-
slaves, yearning for vivid experiences in faraway places. And what's wrong
with that? Nothing whatever.

After a minute of deep breathing and mind-clearing exercises, I tapped at
my forearm dataslate, until a chime signaled that the recorders were reset. I
glanced at the remote camera's monitor, a square of light glowing on my
wrist. The little camera flew high overhead, recording a long shot of my
palanquin joggling down the path. I signaled it to move in closer, and began
again.

124

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

Autumn on the Spine. . . certainly there is great beauty here, and of a fairly
uncommon sort. We were passing through a maze of camelian monoliths,
fantastically carved by the eons. In places where the agate had worn thin, the
long light of the westering sun shone through, rendered blood-red by its
passage through the stone. To the right I caught an occasional glimpse of
Azure Ocean, placid-seeming from this height. The path was bordered with
creeping thyme, the scent of which made an agreeable counterpoint to the
earthy odors arising from my bearers.

I turned a determined eye to them. They shouldered the padded poles of
my palanquin without noticeable effort, trotting in careful unison, so that my
seat swayed in a comfortable and predictable manner. They wore breech-
cloths of goatfish leather, beaded with intricate designs: gray, blue, and dusty
rose. Their sandals were laced to the knee, the thongs tasseled with thin gold
chain, flashing as they moved. On waist straps they carried long slender
daggers and short-barreled power guns of an antique design. Their heads were
shaven,their skin a brown so dark it displayed a purplish tint.

We passed the last camelian monolith and the trail rose to the right
toward the Spine's crest. At the top of the granite knob, I could look out over
both oceans.

"Stop here," I said. I looked east, to the steel-blue deeps of the Stormbringer
Sea. A kilometer offshore, a monster was rolling in the trough of the big
waves. Its copper-scaled body was larger than the starliner that had brought
me to this ocean world. Its great fins glowed like green flames; I could see the
amber glitter of its eye-cluster. I felt a bit of the awe that so rarely touches me
these days — only a little, but enough that clever editing and enhancement
will transmit the feeling to my subscribers, when they relive this moment.
There was a time when the awe came easily to me... whenever I visited a
strange world, saw a new vista, or met a person from a culture unfamiliar to
me. But no more. Now it's something of a struggle to feel anything but fatigue
and weary calculation. Is my reaction strong enough, complex enough,
sympathetic enough, different enough? And on this trip -r- which may be the
last one for me — I worry that a little desperation will find its way into my
work. This one must sell; it must. Another failure will almost certainly end
my career, such as it is.

I realized that I had gone astray again and paused the recorders, saving the
sea monster segment — not much, but usable.

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125

I was very tired; perhaps that was the difficulty. I decided not to waste any
more of the Spine's marvels that day.

"Is this a good camp?" I asked the lead bearer, who called himself Teeg.

"No, offworlder," Teeg said, without turning his head. "Leatherwings
hunt the heights after dark. We must go down into the Valley of Shards, or the
beasts will carry you away to their nests... tent, foolish mechanisms, soft
white person and all. There is shelter in the Valley, and a hot spring to comfort
your weak bones." He spoke without turning his head, and I again suspected
the agency had given me mechs instead of men. There was something about
their insolence, carefully metered. . .unpleasant enough to make me suppose
that I am among surly barbarians, but not vicious enough to deeply offend me.
My historical sources describe the real north Spiners as masters of casual
invective — inventive, industrious, and malicious. But perhaps these particu-
lar ones had simply adapted to the tourist trade and were angling for a tip. Or
it could have been that my force-learned fluency in the Spiner language was
insufficiently subtle, so that I was unable to appreciate the depth of Teeg's
contempt.

I sighed and made another attempt to put my misgivings aside. Here was
a fine place to make an opening narrative dump. "Once again," I said.

...while my vision pans across the wild craggy landscape and the two
oceans, while my heart fills with the beauty of the scene, with anticipation
of the wonders I will see during my journey down the Spine, a resonant
thought-stream sets the scene: "The Spine is a tall narrow chain of moun-
tains, formed during a cataclysmic fracture of the underlying planetary crust.
Upwelling magma lifted a fantastic variety of ancient rock to the top of the
Spine, so that every imaginable landform can be found there. Though less
than a kilometer wide in many places, the Spine divides two oceans
completely, curving south for 4500 kilometers. Its southern terminus is the
icy waste of the polar cap, its northern terminus the small jimgle continent
of Skull and the city of the same name. But the chief marvel of the Spine is
not its unusual geology. Far stranger are the several unique cultures which
grew up along the Spine, isolated by the lack of roads, the expense of air
freight, and the impossibility of ocean transport."

And here, I realized, would bean excellent place to use the sighting of the
sea monster, so I made a note. . .and then I made a sincere attempt to feel all
the things I ought to feel.

126

FANTASY 8i SCIENCE FICTION

Teeg and his fellow mechs set up camp efficiently. I could not seem to
think of them as human, despite my best efforts to believe in them.

The hot spring was in a grotto encrusted with white mineral deposits,
very pleasant. Teeg had hung several small oil lamps from the ceiling, so that
the grotto glowed with soft yellow light, reflected and multiplied by the
crystal efflorescence.

As I eased myself into the spring, which indeed I expected to soothe my
aches, Teeg spoke. "Soak to your heart's content, offworlder. We eat at dark,
but we will save you the scrapings of our plates."

I nodded affably. This seemed to annoy Teeg, or so I might have thought,
had I believed him human. "Enjoy your wallow," he snapped. "At one time,
this spring was sacred to the Goddess of Shallow Clams, and no one went shod
over its holy ground. Now, flabby offworlders sport in its pure waters, happy
as rutting blowfish." He went away.

In the morning we took the trail again. We made camp four more times
before we reached the village of the Spine divers. We met no other travelers
along the way; the agencies in Skull arranged matters so as to preserve the
illusion that the Spine was an empty place — parties on foot were carefully
scheduled to avoid overlaps and all return traffic was by flyer. It worked for
me. The magic of traveling among wonders had come upon me again, perhaps
not so strongly as in the past, but enough that I could begin my work in
earnest.

The village, which had no name, lay in the open mouth of a broken cliff,
several hundred meters above Stormbringer Sea. My bearers paused at the top
of the path that led down into the village, and my recorder lights twinkled.

The houses encrusted the cliffs like barnacles, white sprawls of masonry
with black stone roofs. No one moved in the narrow alleys and stairways that
separated the houses — the divers are a principally nocturnal people. Also,
much of the village's life goes on in the caverns below.

I felt a familiar surge of anticipation, a complex of emotions that even my
harshest critics would admit I feel well. Curiosity was a large component, of
course. I wondered about the folk of the village — what were their special
peculiarities... their dreams, their fears, their expectations? How would I
seem to them? What would the local food be like,- would I eat it with pleasure

THE SPINE DIVERS

127

or resignation? Would I meet a special person, someone with whom I might
form a bond of actual friendship, through whose eyes I might, to some extent,
see the village as the inhabitants saw it? Would I find a lover during my stay?
Such a happy circumstance would add to the value of my travelogue — my
fans are, like everyone else in the universe, curious about the sexual customs
of faraway people.

I refuse, however, to visit brothels in search of merchantable memories
— I believe my fans appreciate this small integrity — and besides, sexuality
that arises from friendship is almost always more interesting than that which
derives from commerce. Love, now... that's another matter entirely; it lies
well outside my area of specialization and I have had no familiarity with it.
I would hesitate to attempt it, even as an experiment.

All in all, I anticipated adventure of a not too dangerous or strenuous
nature. I hoped for some degree of mystery, which the unusual circumstances
of the villagers promised. Finally, I felt that small degree of fear that any
realistic traveler carries along with the rest of the baggage. I journeyed in a
strange land, where it was easy to believe anything might happen, and of
course death was almost a cottage industry in the village.

"You will stay at the offworlder's inn, I suppose," said Teeg, with a
perfunctory sneer.

"What other lodging is available?" I asked.

He shrugged.

But as we approached the village, after a tense half-hour of jolting down
the steep path, a flyer from one of the Skull agencies landed on the inn's roof
and belched forth a crowd of weekenders.

I was disappointed, of course. Somewhere along the way, while putting
up with the discomforts of traveling the path in the old-fashioned style, I had
convinced myself that I was approaching a difficult destination, off the well-
beaten tourist routes, a place only the most intrepid might visit. To an extent
that was true, of course,- probably the weekenders thought themselves
intrepid too.

The truth is the village has many visitors. There are the simple tourists,
like me, but others come to the village with more complicated agendas.

In any case, by the time we reached the inn, all the rooms were taken, and
Teeg smiled.

128

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

At first I believed that this was part of the Real Experience the agency had
promised, a small difficulty leading to an intriguing resolution.

Teeg initially took the position that having delivered me to the nameless
village, his obligation was at an end, but he was suspiciously quick to respond
to my threats and entreaties. A real Spiner, so I thought then, would have
drawn out his enjoyment of my predicament. T eeg instead offered to find me
a room in the house of his demi-uncle, who, so Teeg told me, resided in the
village but was neither a diver nor a user of the diver's drug — and so might
be considered a reliable person.

I was not entirely reassured, but fortunately, my recorders were running
and I got some fairly good material — my initial feeling of annoyance, then
the illogical anger of the traveler whose plans have gone astray, and eventu-
ally the satisfaction of having coped successfully with misfortune. I noticed
an almost pleasurable anxiety associated with my changed circumstances. I
now expected discomfort, but also adventure of an unlooked-for variety.

The house was larger than some, also a bit more dilapidated. A cmmbling
terrace ran the length of the facade. A scattering of wicker chairs held several
ancient persons — wrappedinthickrobesandgazingfixedlyoutoverStormbiinger
Sea — who failed to acknowledge my arrival hy so much as a blink.

"Bumed-out cases," Teeg said, with his customary sneer. "Uncle col-
lects them, as some might collect rare orchids or the ears of soft white
persons."

"A curious hobby," I said cautiously.

Teeg laughed. "Not so curious as yours. I have watched you, straining to
feel something, to revive your dead heart."

"It's no hobby." I was a little irritated. What did this unwashed savage
know of my craft?

"More unbelievable yet. There exist people so shallow and crippled that
they would pay money for your false memories?"

I shook my head; no profit in discussing aesthetic matters with Teeg the
Spiner.

He laughed again and led me through a portico into the house.

The uncle seemed a paler, older version of T eeg, but he was as obsequious
as any other innkeeper. "Yes, I can suit you very well," he said. "A room in
the south wing, the second floor, with a fine view of the Sea and a comfortable
bed. You'll like it, I promise, or my name's not Tsaldo Loomp."

THE SPINE DIVERS

129

I touched his outstretched hand in greeting. "And your name is...?"

He looked mystified for a moment, and then giggled. "Tsaldo Loomp. At
your service. And your name, sir?"

"Michael Mastine."

"We are honored. Citizen Mastine," he said, with only a trace of irony.

Teeg and one of his henchmen carried my baggage up to the room. I
trailed after, trying for a strong impression of the house, where perhaps
interesting events would occur. The walls were white plaster, stained with
age. At intervals hung little dark portraits of dead Spiners, and also a few
trophies, the so-called "rainbow rippers" that the divers hunt. These were
large, slim-bodied fish striped with once-glorious color, their long razor-
edged fins stiffened forever in poses of contrived fury. Their eyes were huge,
adapted to the darkness of deep water — the reason why they only entered the
tidal caverns at night. They were all at least two meters long, some much
larger, and I could see that such a creature might be a formidable quarry for
a solitary diver.

The house was quiet, a little musty, and cool... it gave an impression of
interesting secrets, of an unseen inner life. I began to think that perhaps I had
been fortunate.

Following Teeg down the hall toward my room, I saw the woman come
toward us. The bearers pressed close to the wall, their eyes cast down in
sudden deference. She glanced directly at me for a moment, as she brushed
past, and I felt a touch of the same distant awe that the sea monster had
aroused in me. She was dark, and brilliant with unconventional beauty. . .she
was more than a little frightening. She wore the same beaded breechcloth that
Teeg wore, her naked torso was smoothly muscled and where she was
unscarred, her skin had a dense lustrous polish. One breast was perfect, the
other's shape was marred slightly by an indented slash just above the magenta
nipple. Her face was unmarked except for a pink seam along her jaw. Her
mouth was thin and tense, her eyes huge and of a pale shocking gray. Her
black hair was hacked short, without style.

I had to resist the urge to turn and look after her. I was suddenly glad that
the offworlders' inn was full.

My room was adequate, if primitive: an iron bed, a wardrobe, a wash-
stand, a high-backed chair, a rickety balcony overlooking one of the village's
wider alleys and as promised, a fine view of the Sea.

130

FANTASY fc SCIENCE FICTION

I was sure Teeg was a man only after he was gone. He piled my luggage
in the center of the room, then turned to go. I felt a certain distress at his
unceremonious attitude; had we not shared the rigors of the trail for five days?
I took out a clip of valuta coupons, attempted to give him a small gratuity. He
took the coupons and gave me a long chilly look. Then he spat juicily on them,
dropped them with a flourish, and went away, knee chains flickering brightly.

I LEFT MY room as the sun settled to the Azure Ocean,
looking for dinner and a sense of the place. Tsaldo Loomp
wheeled one of his ancients in as I went out; the innkeeper
nodded, the ancient stared intently at nothing.

The alleys were filling with shadow and occasional strollers, mostly
offworld folk from the tourist flyer. These were a varied lot, from a half-dozen
worlds, mostly couples and triads, apparently out for a romantic weekend in
exotic surroundings. Their loud voices rubbed uncomfortably at my nerves.
I found myself unreasonably irritated. Tourists, I thought peevishly, forget-
ting that I was only a tourist myself. I suppose this bit of self-deception is an
essential tool of the serious traveler.

I was hungry, after nearly five days of Teeg's spartan cuisine — mostly
freeze-dried stews and hard biscuits, edible but bland. I paused my recorders
and cued my guidebook — by the obscure Hiepter Gant Jr., published almost
a hundred years ago, but the only one available. I scanned the restaurant
entries, which were few, and settled on a place Gant described thusly:
"reeking with history and garlic, the Ripper Room has been under the same
ownership for centuries, a rarity in a place where lives are generally short and
full of distraction."

A map appeared on my wrist and I memorized it before reactivating my
recorders.

The directions led me into the congested heart of the village, where the
white masonry houses crowded together and the alleys were so narrow and
dark that streetlights burned already. I passed several entrances to the
caverns, black mouths exhaling a cold bitter breath. Rusty bars blocked the
entrances and signs warned: TOURISTS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN, Unless
Accompanied by a Certified Guide.

Somewhat to my surprise I found the Ripper Room still in business, and
pushed through the door into a cheerful scene. A large low-ceilinged room

THE SPINE DIVERS

131

held several dozen tables. On the whitewashed walls were enough lamps to
make the rooms bright, and the floor was of clean polished flagstone. Though
the hour was early for dinner, customers occupied most of the tables. Most
were outsiders, but there were a fair number of Spiners present — in fact I
thought to recognize Teeg and his henchmen, freshly bathed and wearing
pangalac unisuits, but when next I looked he was gone. Waiters trotted back
and forth bearing trays of steaming food. I sniffed, detecting the waft of garlic
and other savories, but if the odor of history was present it was too subtle for
me. No stuffed fish decorated the walls, a point in the establishment's favor.

A small old man came up to me, hairy eyebrows raised. "Will you dine
with us. Citizen?" His features were sharp, his black eyes glittering with
energetic curiosity. His hair was a glossy white pelt, which gave him an
animal quality.

"I hope to," I said.

"Come with me."

He led me to a table in the comer, well away from the kitchen door. "Is
this satisfactory. Citizen?"

"Fine."

"The table has a touchscreen, a menu from which you may choose.
Today's special is a generous portion of fettuccine dressed with clams and
sweet peppers, in a white sauce with cheese. I recommend it highly."

"Thank you," I said.

He bowed quite gracefully. "lam Odorini, the proprietor. Call me, should
you have any questions or difficulties." He glanced at my forearm dataslate,
and then at the little remote camera, which had followed me inside and now
hovered above us. These accessories are commonly used by tourists; in fact
several other remotes hung beneath the Ripper's Room ceiling, storing up
memories for their owners. But it was apparent to me that Odorini somehow
recognized the quality of my devices, and understood that I was more than a
casual traveler. "I leave you to enjoy your meal, then, " he said, and went back
to his desk beside the entrance.

The fettuccine was excellent, as was the pale green wine, the antipasto,
the rumcake, the coffee, the brandy. Clearly the Ripper Room did not
specialize in the cuisine of the region, but that might prove to be a mercy later
in my visit. I drank a toast to Hiepter Gant fr., wherever he was. I felt a good
deal more cheerful than I had an hour before; I felt ready to explore the village.

132

FANTASY A. SCIENCE FICTION

When I stopped to pay my bill, Odorini accepted my valuta and spoke in
his careful manner. "Was your meal acceptable?"

"Completely," I answered.

"I am pleased."

I had the notion that he wanted to say more, so I lingered a moment
beside the desk.

He hesitated, as if weighing the propriety of the situation. "You are
Michael Mastine, the traveloguist?"

I was astonished. "You know my work?"

"Yes, indeed. I own several of your chips. 'Life among the Treemen of the
Brontoi Archipelago.' 'Nude Rafting on the Speite,' and, of course, your
classic, 'Down the Gravity Beam to the Core.'"

The universe is sometimes a bizarrely small place. "I didn't choose the
titles," I said.

"I thought as much," he said. "Well, should you require any assistance,
or advice, or even a guide to the caverns — I am certified by the diver's
association — don't hesitate to ask. I would be pleased to help."

"You're very kind," I said.

"Not at all." He walked me to the door. "Take care, " he said, as I left the
Ripper Room.

Outside night had come to the village, and lights burned in all the alleys.
More people were out now, some of them divers, I supposed, or at least they
seemed to have the look of Spiners — dark, remote, dressed in barbaric
simplicity. None gave me more than a passing glance. I wondered where they
were going, what they planned.

Once, out of curiosity, I followed a scarred young man through several
twists and turns, until he suddenly turned and hissed at me, knife in hand.
I raised my empty hands peacefully, stepped back. He made a warning gesture
with his knife, and sidled away into the darkness.

I wandered about, passing the doors of several bars and drug emporia, the
occasional souvenir shop, a whorehouse, a self-service hospital. Most numer-
ous were the various suicide parlors, though these seemed less than prosper-
ous and I saw no customers waiting. Many houses were silent and empty, as
if the village had at one time supported a larger population. But from behind
some of the doors and courtyard gates came the sound of laughter and music

THE SPINE DIVERS

133

and the clink of glasses. I began to feel a certain lonely melancholy. No one
here knew me, except for Odorini the restaurateur. No one would invite me
to their parties. As was my invariable custom, I carried no letters of
introduction; as much as possible I tried to travel as an ordinary tourist

At the south edge of the village a broken stairway led up to a terrace. I
climbed it in the light of the huge rising moon, which seemed to fill half of
the eastern horizon, though it was a few days past full.

Several iron benches at the terrace's edge overlooked the village, and I sat,
a little tired. After positioning the remote camera to record my silhouette
against the moon, I considered my next move. The village was a closed
society, not particularly interesting in itself. The architecture was no differ-
ent from that of a million other stony places. Some of the people were
picturesque — good for a minute or two on the finished chip.

I tried to remember why I had thought the village such a sure thing.

Oh yes, I thought. The divers and their drug.

I learned about the divers and their drug from my agent, Dalrimple
Cleame.

"You're broke," he told me one day.

"Really," I said weakly.

"Really. But I can get you one more shot, if you have the gonads to try
again."

"Details?" I asked, with justifiable suspicion.

"Marginal publisher... an outfit called Remembrances Inc., chartered
out of Firenza. Ever heard of it? Me neither. Chintzy expense account, small
advance, limited distribution. But it'll keep you in the biz, and who knows?
Might do well enough to bring you back from the dead. Stranger things have
happened."

"Where?" I had been in a monosyllabic mood for months.

"A planet called Raarea. A village where they do something very
dangerous; they swim alone through tidal caverns, hunting a big mean fish.
They use a speargun."

"Why?"

"They extract a drug from the big mean fish. Now get this: it's a no-
fear drug. When you're on it, you aren't afraid of anything. Just what you
need, Michael."

134

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

"Thank you."

"Think nothing of it. And picture this: some of these divers, who swim
through these black caverns, carried by vicious tides from one ocean to
another, flying under mountains in the darkness, chasing a creature that
would just love to cut them to small scraps. . .some of them, they don't even
use the drug."

A synthetic version of the drug is available on Dilvermoon. It causes a
sort of mentational leprosy in its addicts — fear, after all, is a necessary thing.
Without fear, we avoid much of the pain of the psychic injuries we receive,
and parts of our hearts rot away unnoticed.

But it must be different, here in the village. Or perhaps not; many folk
come here to buy the courage to leave their lives, or for other, less-
understandable purposes.

I heard a footfall, close behind me. I turned quickly and jumped up, afraid
that some criminal was stalking me, but it was the woman I had seen at the
house, her identity plain in the moonlight. Her expression was less readable.
Curiosity? Annoyance? I couldn't tell.

Against the evening chill, she wore a white shirt, unbuttoned to the
waist.

"Hello," she said, in a low soft voice, an incongruously sweet voice.

"Hello," I answered.

"Don't be afraid," she said, as she came up to me.

"I'm not," I said, in somewhat hollow tones.

She smiled and stood too close to me. "You're not? Odorini said you were
a man who was afraid of everything." She seemed to realize that this might
not be a very friendly conversational gambit. "Of course, he doesn't mean
that in a bad way."

My recorders were still mnning; I hardly thought of them. "You're a
friend of his?"

She shrugged. "He told me to look for you here."

I became aware of her perfume, a light scent, reminiscent of fresh-cut hay
and flowers — an odd scent in this stony seascape.

"Do you generally do what Odorini tells you to do?"

"He's my father, or so I'm told. I give him respect. Besides, he said I might
find you interesting. And that you would definitely find me interesting."

THE SPINE DIVERS

135

I'd run out of things to say. She came even closer, so that I could almost
feel the warmth of her body. She was almost exactly my height; her eyes were
inches from mine when she spoke again.

"Does this seem ugly to you?" She looked down and traced with her
finger the scar across her breast.

"No," I said, a bit breathlessly. I was by now quite frightened. The
encounter had taken on an erotic menace for which I was completely
unprepared. What was going on? Who was this woman? Who was Odorini and
what was he up to?

"Am I beautiful to you, then?"

Her eyes had a strange blind glitter. I wondered if she were under the
influence of the drug.

"Yes," I answered. "Of course."

She smiled, for the first time, and it was an expression as soft and sweet
and surprising as her voice. "I'm a diver," she said. "Odorini said you would
be more interested in that than in my beauty."

"You're a diver? Really?"

The smile faded. "Yes, yes. So what? Here there are many divers, but only
one Mirella."

"That is your name? Mirella?"

"My name, yes." Now she seemed impatient. "Come. We will go back
to Loomp's house and talk, or fuck. Whatever you want."

I drew back slightly, an involuntary gesture of fright, and she made a
sound of exasperation. "You are far too slow for me, " she said, and went away,
walking fast.

When I returned, the house was silent and dark, and I found my way to
my room with the aid of my remote's camera lights.

I took breakfast at the Ripper Room, of course,- curiosity and paranoia
demanded I immediately interview Odorini. Unfortunately, he wasn't there
when I arrived.

When I came to pay my bill, Odorini had appeared, looking bright-eyed
and respectful. I was disarmed, and unsure of how to proceed.

Finally I ventured a remark. "I think I met your daughter last night."

He raised his hairy eyebrows in mild inquiry. "Ah. Mirella, you mean?"

"You have other daughters?"

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"Many," he said modestly. "Sons, too."

He seemed polite and receptive, but not particularly eager for conversa-
tion. I tried again. "She said you wanted her to seek me out. May I ask why? "

He shrugged, but not at all insolently. "I thought you might find her
unusual. And of course I wanted her to have an opportunity to meet a well-
known artist from the larger universe. The village is such a small world, you
see."

"I suppose," I said. "She told me she was a diver."

"Yes. That is so." Odorini looked quite sad, suddenly.

"You don't approve?"

Another shrug, a sorrowing gesture. "The divers... they all die young.
What can I say? Hers is a glorious profession, of course, but... she is a sweet
child; one's children should live forever, no?"

A silence passed, while I struggled to think of something to say. The
recorders were running, though today Odorini seemed to take no notice of my
remote camera, which hovered slightly to the side, automatically recording
shots of each speaker in turn. It occurred to me that an interesting story was
rising from the anonymity of the village.

If only I could find the wit to draw it forth, my professional difficulties
might be over.

"Well," I said. "You mentioned that you might be available. Toguide me
into the caverns?"

"Yes, of course." He brightened a bit. "You could watch the divers make
their leap, or if you prefer, we could go to the Well of Rebirth, to see the
survivors emerge with their trophies. The hunting tide mns tonight."

"I knew," I said; my arrival had been planned to coincide with a hunting
tide, as there are only three suitable tides per week, on average. "Does Mirella
hunt tonight?"

For an instant Odorini's direct gaze seemed tinged with dislike, but
perhaps I was mistaken. "No, no. Not tonight. She is still recovering from
injuries. ..on her last hunt, a fish cut her badly. But soon enough she will be
ready."

"I see," I said.

Odorini waited, once again an avatar of self-possession, sharp old face
pleasantly blank.

"Well, then, tonight. Perhaps the Well?" I said.

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137

He bowed. "Meet me here an hour past sunset. If that is convenient."

CfTFi HE DAY passed without profit. I took a steep path down
I to the Azure Ocean, where I found a small stony beach,
I littered with sunbathing offworlders. A swimming area
had been set up, protected from hungry sea monsters by a
charged mesh, but the murky water tempted me not at all. At the far end of
the strand were a cluster of so-called "suicide rocks," where for a small fee a
customer might be clamped, there to await the inrushing tide. It seemed to
me an eccentric approach to self-termination, but perhaps some folk saw a
certain majesty in it — death by inexorable natural forces.

I bought a sticky rum drink at a rock-slab cabana, rented a lounge chair,
and joined the other tourists for a while.

I looked down the beach, trying to think of some useful work I might do
in the village, before dark and the descent into the caverns — but without
success. My mind seemed heavy and dull, and I could only hope that my
imagination was still functioning, somewhere below the conscious level. I
noticed again that many of the offworlders carried recording gear, some of it
of professional quality. As I watched the tiny cameras hovering over their
owners, an unpleasant image came to me: the cameras looked a little like flies
attracted to some offal washed up on the sand. The odor of rotting seaweed
contributed a degree of authenticity to this unfortunate perception.

No other colorful metaphors occurred to me and I quickly grew bored. I
gulped down my drink and made to rise.

"Hello," said someone, in the Dilvermoon trade patois, my native tongue.

I turned, to see a smiling tourist approaching me. She wore a fashionable
bathing sash about her narrow waist. She was tall and wore her long red hair
in a knot of braids. All of her body hair had been replaced with stylized tattoos,
so that from a distance red curls seemed to flow up her belly in languid
chevrons. Though a trifle over-voluptuous for my taste, she possessed the
physical perfection available to any Dilvermooner of means. Two external
cameras orbited her and she had a forearm dataslate identical to mine, except
that it was new. She wanted to compare equipment. We exchanged names.
She was a beginner, but fairly knowledgeable and apparently wealthy enough
to start with quality gear. We discussed her setup, and then I let it slip that
I was a professional.

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She became vivacious. "Tell me about your work, please."

"Well .... I travel about to unusual places. . .like this. Then I try to see with
clear eyes. Then I spend a lot of time in the studio, trying to put together a tme
picture of what I've seen."

"Do you publish under your own name?"

I sighed. "Yes. But there's no particular reason for you to have heard of
me. I'm obscure. Or, as I like to think of it, I have a small but select audience. "

"Oh," she said. "That sounds nice. I'll have to look for your chips when
I get home. But... well, do you think there's still a market for, you know, the
plain old travelogue? One of my husbands is a factor for one of the Bo'eme
clearing houses, and he says the vogue of the one-person production is over.
Dead and gone. He says people want epics these days. Casts of thousands.
Multi-track memories. Grand dramas, tight plotting, life-or-death situa-
tions."

"He may be right," I said, a little stiffly. She was articulating my worst
fear. "But some still appreciate the subtleties of a simple, deep, personal
experience. I hope so, anyway."

"I'm sure you know more about it than he does," she said consolingly,
and wandered away.

When she was gone, I felt drowned in desperation and lethargy.

At length the siren sounded and we all got up to go. Offshore, the Azure
Ocean began to boil as the tide poured from crevices below. I felt a subtle
trembling in the stones beneath my feet — the transmitted violence of the
tide as it broke against the other side of the Spine. Metal doors slid up to seal
off the rock-slab cabana. The man who rented the lounge chairs went around
collecting them, and he started up the cliff trail with several dozen nested on
his back.

The rest of us followed immediately, except for a group down by the
suicide rocks. A woman was apparently awaiting the tide, surrounded by her
family — or perhaps just a gaggle of morbid tourists, all of whom had
emotigogue recorders and free-flying cameras. The woman had a tired, rather
pleasant face. She didn't seem at all anxious,- probably she'd bought a sample
of the dmg in the village. The metal bands that held her wrists and ankles
sparkled in the westering sun.

I knew I ought to go down and make a record of this defining event —

THE SPINE DIVERS

139

suicide was a major industry in the village, as one might expect. But for some
reason I couldn't bring myself to do so.

I left the other tourists to watch the tide climb the Heights and went in
search of lunch. I found a clean-looking basement cafe down a narrow alley;
it advertised "genuine Northern Spine cuisine." This consisted of a variety
of fish and mollusks — pickled, smoked, dried — as well as several kinds of
weedy vegetables, accompanied by a gray crumbly algae-based bread. I'd had
much worse, and I tried to keep an open mind. My fans deserve that
consideration. The strong greasy flavors that lay so heavily on my palate
might well seem marvelous to some. Of course, these days most playback
consoles allow their users to isolate a single sensory track — taste, for
instance — and suppress any unwanted tracks. So my fans will not be entirely
at the mercy of my unappreciative thoughts.

After lunch I went back to my room to do a little editing.

I carry a large folding flatscreen monitor on all my trips. It's not
holographic. Human vision isn't holographic... that's my reasoning. Even
though my little remote records a partially holographic image, via radar-
ranging, I don't use that capability in my finished chips. I don't want that
jarring textural contrast between the images recorded from my optic nerve
and images recorded by the camera, so I flatten the camera's input into an
ordinary stereo image. Besides, there's nothing more annoying to an artist
than to see people walking around their holocubes, peering into the comers,
looking for the little details the artist didn't want them to notice. People enjoy
doing that, but so what? With my stuff, they have to be content to seowhat
I see. I only use external images when necessary for clarity. A critic said of my
last chip "...clings with tiny weak claws to his outmoded technique,
attempts to conceal his limitations beneath a false and labored simplicity."
I'm not fashionable, I know — that's one reason for my declining popularity,
so my agent Dalrimple Cleame tells me.

I shut down my recorders and unfolded the big monitor.

For a while I just flipped between tracks, getting a sense of the material,
trying to slip into that strange double-minded state that I must adopt in order
to work with my own memories. Not everyone can relive an experience while
simultaneously retaining a useful awareness of the here and now. It's like a
disorienting drug, that mental state, a kind of purposeful delirium. It's like

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dreaming, except that one's recorded memories are far more vivid and
concrete than any dream and they can easily overwhelm an unpracticed
person. In fact, some must resort to filters which scale back the intensity of
the recorded experience. But I've been doing this for a very long time now. My
consciousness easily splits into the two streams that the work demands.

It struck me that so far the unifying emotional coloration in these
segments seemed to be desperation. In a moment of whimsy, I said, "Begin
at the beginning, from the outside in."

I set up an experimental track and I ran the call from my agent.

I've never given up; here was the evidence — an external shot of me,
wearing a dirty pair of shorts, gray-fleshed and unbarbered, hunched over the
viewscreen of my phone. Except when I'm editing past experiences and don't
want to risk a possibly fatal experiential heterodyne, I always keep the
recorders mnning; that's why I can claim I've never given up. I watched my
slightly younger self have his guarded conversation with Cleame, noticed for
the millionth time what a small and unexceptional-looking man I am. My
hair is black and straight, and when I'm well-groomed it lies close to my skull.
My face is faintly predatory, with hooded blue eyes set deep below high-
arched brows. My mouth sometimes has a malicious curve. My hands are
long and bony, and despite Teeg's remarks about "soft white persons," my
musculature is well-developed and I am strong for my size.

I dissolved the long shot, moved inside, let the desperation and reluctant
hope emerge clearly from the emotional mix.

Then I made a clean jump-cut to the trail that first day....

When I grew tired, I realized that with this tentative track I had made a
major departure from my past work. Always before, I tried to be, as best I
could, a blank tablet, an empty skin. Such neutrality in an emotigogue
recording is, I've always believed, essential. And my agent and editors had
always reminded me of one of the industry's primary taboos: don’t make
memories about remembering. "Until you get to be a mega-star," Cleame
told me one day, "nobody's going to give a damn about your working methods
or esthetic philosophies or artistic angst. Remember this."

Now I was allowing my personal concerns to seep into every sequence,
so that the work had become a story about me, and not about the nameless
village and its dwellers.

I was disturbed and frustrated, but for some reason, I preserved the track.

THE SPINE DIVERS

141

Maybe change was necessary, maybe I was wrong about what my fans
wanted, or perhaps the thing they wanted had changed.

I met Odorini at the appointed time. The restaurateur wore a dark cloak,
the hood pulled close around his face. He looked a bit sinister in the dim
lamplight.

He glanced at my feet. "You're wearing sensible shoes, I see. Very good.
Shall we go?"

He took me to the nearest cave mouth and pressed his palm to the
identiplate. A chime rang out and then the iron gate swung back, making a
rusty screech. It was all very atmospheric. Odorini played to this effect
shamelessly. He turned and beckoned me in, staring wide-eyed. "Come with
me. . .down, down, down into the darkness, " he said, and then cackled wildly.

As we went inside the cave, automatic lights came on, to reveal an
artificially smooth walkway. Odorini nudged me with his elbow. "How was
I?" he asked.

"Too much," I answered. "I'll have to cut you from this segment."

He took this with good humor. "I imagine you're right. I'm not made for
melodrama. My face is too serious."

I began to think I'd made a mistake in hiring Odorini. His constant
awareness of my purposes was distracting.

"Listen," I said. "Would you do me a favor, would you pretend you don't
know me? Pretend I'm just another tourist."

He looked abruptly solemn. "Of course. I should have known better."

As we went deeper into the caverns, I realized that the primitive village
above was only a consciously quaint fafade. The cavern was thoroughly
modernized — well-lit, with cushioned walkways and steel railings. At some
junctions were small automated kiosks, where directions could be obtained,
as well as hot drinks and snacks.

"You're surprised?" Odorini asked.

"Well, yes, " I said. "My room has a washbasin. The bathroom's down the
hall."

He laughed. "We're a tourist attraction. Didn't your agency in Skull
promise you The Real Experience? Most visitors are content with that; we
take them down to the Well of Rebirth by a different path. The stone sweats,
torches flare, eerie music plays. You see?"

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"Oh."

"But you should know the truth about us. Do you know why the village
has no name? Because the Tourist Development Council can't seem to come
up with a name that pleases everyone. We'd have a name if we could; can you
imagine how difficult it is to advertise a nameless place?"

I was very uncomfortable with this conversation; my prospects for
making a successful travelogue, at least in the customary mode, seemed to
be fading. To some extent, all tourist destinations are falsifications, but
tourists don't like to be reminded of this fact. "You make it sound trivial."

"No, no. I don't mean to." His sharp old face grew dark and sad. "There's
nothing trivial about the divers. And they are the heart of the matter; all our
prosperity springs from them and the drug. Our industry is based on fear, and
fear is never trivial."

As he spoke, he led me into a side corridor, where a residential level
began. Here were large open areas carved from the limestone and occupied by
a surprising crowd.

We walked slowly, as Odorini dispensed a running commentary.

Two naked men fought with iron gloves in a sunken arena. They circled
cautiously, parried each other's blows in a shower of yellow sparks. "Gladi-
ators from the Dilvermoon blood stadia. They come here to learn to control
their fear, " Odorini said. "They start with a trace of the drug and increase the
dosage until the fear is manageable. Trainable. In the same vein, we minister
to the devotees of other dangerous sports, to soldiers, to doctors, to artists."

"Artists?"

Odorini gave me a faintly malicious smile. "Artists, yes. They're the
most numerous group among the dwellers below. Are not all good artists
familiar with fear and its destructive effects?"

And indeed the next open space was some sort of atelier, where men and
women worked at various crafts. Potters sweated over wheels, painters stood
at easels, glass-blowers squinted into the glare of the furnaces. A woman at
a huge clattering loom threw her shuttle back and forth with manic intensity,
and cursed in a low fierce voice.

"You deny this?" Odorini asked.

I shrugged.

His smile grew less amiable. "Consider. What would an artist not fear?
So many things to fear; critics, poverty, drudgery, and boredom. And the

THE SPINE DIVERS

143

greatest fear of all. . .that one is untalented and therefore wasting one's life in
a futile pursuit. I would think that every artist, no matter how successful,
suffers from this fear at times, except for those with tmly monstrous and
crippling egos."

"I guess so," I said in a hollow voice, feeling attacked.

He glanced at me with a suddenly compassionate expression. "I had supposed
that you came here to deal with some fear of your own. Was I incorrect?"

"I don't know," I said. "I didn't think so, when I planned this trip."
"Ah," he said, with no trace of skepticism. "It's as well, Michael. You
know, there are very few similarities between lack of fear, and courage."

W E PASSED A room of hard-faced men and women,
jerking and straining at the straps of emotigogue
chairs, eyes rolled back into their heads.

"Soldiers," Odorini said. "They relive old battles,
to learn what they might have done, with less fear."

Next was a room of dancers, then a room of singers in audio isolation
booths, then a room of gravsled jockeys in simulators. I stopped looking; the
thought of all that fear was making me dizzy and a little ill.

Odorini seemed to sense my discomfort. "Come; we'll see something
rarely seen by tourists." He led me through a steel pressure door, marked
Essential Personnel Only.

We walked along an artificial corridor. At several junctures, gates closed
off the corridor. At each we were asked for identification, by guards wearing
the uniform of a Dilvermoon security agency.

At the last gate we were both searched, thoroughly and impersonally. At
first the guards demanded that I remove my recorders, but Odorini produced
a document granting me special permission.

"He's no spy," said Odorini jovially to the guards. "Believe me, he
doesn't know what to look for."

I felt vaguely insulted.

"We still have a few secrets," Odorini said. "The synthetic drag is,
according to connoisseurs, inferior to our product, though some say this is
sheer mysticism. Also our process is cheaper, once we have the fish. On
Dilvermoon they must use sub-molecular assemblers of great sophistication.
Very costly."

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FANTASY Si SCIENCE FICTION

"What do you use?"

Odorini rolled his eyes wildly, falling back into his role as infernal guide.
"The toenails of executed felons. Essence of black pearl. The milk of virgins."

"The milk of virgins?"

He shrugged. "Have you never heard of hormone therapy? Our alche-
mists are state-of-the-art."

I laughed; Odorini was an entertaining companion.

We passed through a portal into the laboratories, which exactly re-
sembled every other industrial laboratory I had ever seen, except for the faint
but pervasive stink of fish. White-coated technicians tended rows of gleaming
machines, and in one comer was a dissection station.

"Look at this," he said, taking me to a trough on which a rainbow ripper
lay, its colors subdued by death. "A fine specimen, eh?"

"I suppose." The fish gave off a chill; evidently it had just been removed
from refrigeration. I reached out to touch one of its fins, and cut my finger
deeply enough to bleed a little.

Odorini gave me a clean cloth to wrap around the finger. "Dangerous
creature, even frozen," he said.

My annoyance surfaced again. Odorini was an intelligent man; why had
he brought me here? "I don't believe my fans will be very interested in the
mechanics of the process," I said, somewhat sourly.

Odorini assumed an expression of contrition, which might even have
been genuine. "Sorry," he said. "But I'm striving for balance in my presenta-
tion. I just want you to always keep in mind that despite the splendor and
bravery of the divers, the stirring ceremonies, the glorious deeds and noble
stories... the final result is nothing but a big dead fish."

"You're making editorial suggestions?"

He smiled and said nothing.

A technician began to carve up the fish as we left.

When we joined the ordinary tourist route down to the Well, I saw that
Odorini had described it accurately. The dank walls compressed my spirits.
I felt the weight of the Spine poised above me, ready to crush. The torches gave
off a dense smoke, so that visibility was limited to a few yards. The eerie
music Odorini had mentioned was thoroughly eerie.

The whole thing reminded me of a particularly well-designed amuse-
ment park.

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145

Eventually we came to a wide corridor, where the ceiling lifted away and
a number of other tourists and their guides waited. A long window was set
into one side of this gallery. Odorini led me to it.

Below was a great natural cavern, converted into a barbaric and sumptu-
ous banquet hall . Gas flares shed a harsh brilliant light on hundreds of divers,
who sat at tables and lolled on couches. Servants scurried back and forth,
carrying platters of food and drink.

"The Hall of the Tides," said Odorini. "Where the divers who do not
swim this night go to console themselves with various pleasures. Where new
divers are made."

I saw what he meant; here and there men and women were copulating,
some in shadowy alcoves at the back of the hall, a few on the tables,
surrounded by approving spectators. It was a scene from a somewhat
decadent medievalist romance, and I was amused.

My smile faded a bit when I saw Mirella at a table almost directly below
the observation window. She leaned against a large slab-chested man, peeling
a pale gold pear with a silver knife. She still wore the loose white shirt, but
she was otherwise naked, her breechcloth tossed carelessly aside. The
implications of this came slowly to me, and for some illogical reason I felt a
sense of loss. Her legs were long, smooth, and powerful-looking — very
beautiful. Her expression seemed less intense now, her lips were glossy with
pear juice.

I turned away, to see Odorini looking down at his child. His old face, full
of wistful affection, was very sad.

"Was Mirella made here?" I asked.

"Oh no," he said. "Not in the way you mean. Only divers and their
indentured servants are allowed within the Hall."

I looked about at the avid-faced tourists, who were making mde remarks
and pointing. "They don't mind being watched?"

He shrugged. "Do you mind your spectators? Many more watch you as
you go about your travels. And peer forth from your eyes, feel with your
heart... a more intimate sort of voyeurism than this," he said, waving at the
tourists above, the revellers below.

"It's not the same," I said. "My experiences are carefully edited. My
purposes are different."

Odorini spoke with mild contempt, or so I imagined. "Because you're

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making art? The divers make art of their lives, or so they believe." His smile
settled into an ironic crook. "We all must cling to our illusions, not so? Or
sink."

I returned my attention to the Hall of Tides. Somehow I'd lost track of
my purpose in coming here, of my work. Somehow I'd become involved with
Odorini's agenda. . .whatever that might turn out to be. It was unacceptable.
Unacceptable.

A man in a long black robe and a tall red hat came into the Hall and
banged a staff against the floor. "The tide wizard, " Odorini said. "He notifies
the celebrants that divers are due in the Well."

Immediately there was an exodus from the Hall; even the most energeti-
cally engaged couples separated. The divers in general revealed no irritation
at this interruption, but Mirella was an exception. She pouted at the large
man, who was already halfway to the portal at the Hall's far end.

"She is so young," Odorini said, almost whispering. Then, in a stronger
voice: "Hurry! It's time."

In a crowd of eager offworlders, we made our way along another crooked
passage to the Well of Rebirth.

The Well was a natural amphitheater perhaps 150 meters wide, now
flooded by the tide to a depth of fifty meters. A series of ledges ringed the Well,
the lowest thronged with divers, who had by now assembled. We tourists
were permitted to watch from the highest ledge, several stories above the
Well's surface

In the torchlight, the water in the Well was a murky indigo, boiling with
random currents. I tried to imagine swimmingin the black depths below. . .but
even the thought made me feel a degree of panic.

"Watch, now," Odorini said.

The first diver burst the surface in a cloud of spray. He sank back and
began to swim for the ledge. His maneuvering lights, a dozen metallic ovoids
glowing blue-white, followed him like a school of obedient fish.

He pulled himself halfway from the water and lay gasping. No one helped
him.

"He failed to kill," Odorini said by way of explanation.

After a minute, the unlucky diver got to his feet. He unstrapped his
breathing apparatus, gathered his lights into a net bag, and staggered away.

THE SPINE DIVERS

147

Two more unsuccessful divers emerged, to be greeted by the same silent
contempt. This struck me as a harsh custom and I said as much to Odorini.

"Yes, I think so too, "he said. "But here is the rationale: divers who suffer
their fellows' scorn too often will be forced to pursue the fish more recklessly,
in which case they either kill successfully or die gloriously. Do you see the
logic?"

I didn't have a reply. Below, the first successful diver appeared, clinging
weakly to a line. She triggered an inflatable buoy attached to her breather
harness, and then seemed to lose consciousness. Several of the waiting divers
dove into the Well, and brought her and her line to the ledge. Many hands
lifted her from the water, and heaved in her prize, a ripper not quite dead,
making feeble attempts to shake loose the harpoon which impaled its flank.

The large man I had seen with Mirella tapped the fish's head with a stun
stick and it went rigid. A half-dozen divers dragged it from the water, fastened
a block-and-tackle to its tail, and hauled it up to hang from a nearby gallows,
where its quivering soon ceased.

Another fish was landed, another failure was scorned. Then a diver rose
into the Well with the corpse of a casualty. He cradled the body gently, held
it up and spun in a slow circle, as if displaying the victim to all the watchers.
The dead diver had been a woman with a hard handsome face, and when her
diving hood was pulled away, long bright hair spilled into the water. When
the others lifted the body gently to the ledge, the extent of the damage became
clear. The fish had taken one leg to the hip, both arms to the elbow, and had
opened the abdomen almost to the spine.

j^parently this was what the other tourists had come to see. They whispered
and giggled beside me, and I felt a shudder of disgust work through me.

"Let's go," I said to Odorini. He made no answer, and when I turned to
him, I saw that he was crying silently.

The Ripper Room was closed when we regained the surface, but Odorini
took me to a back room, and from a dusty bottle poured us each a glass of red
wine. We sat at a small round table, in an uneasy silence. I surreptitiously
examined the scene through my forearm monitor, and cheated a bit to my.left,
so as to paint my face with a flattering shadow.

Finally I asked him, "What are you doing, Odorini? It's more than
common helpfulness, isn't it?"

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He smiled a wounded smile. "Ah, you've found me out. You're too acute
a student of humanity."

"Don't mock me," I said. "This may be a joke to you, but it's my life."

"I'm not mocking, " he said with irresistible sincerity. "Well, it's nothing
very sinister. My daughter, Mirella... did you know she was once my life's
light? Such a sweet little girl there never was before, will never be again. It
seems just yesterday that she sat on my knee, telling me that she would be
a diver when she grew up."

His face slackened, and his eyes were dull with an inward gaze.

"And now she is a diver," I said, in an attempt to move the conversation
along.

He shivered. "Yes. She realized her dream. But soon she will die, and
what will I have left? Only those few poor memories of her that my ancient
head can hold."

The truth dawned on me. "You want me to include her in my travel-
ogue?"

"Yes, and why not? she is worthy of your regard, not so?"

"Yes, she is," I said quickly. "But why don't you make your own
recordings? The equipment is available here,- I've seen tourists with rented gear."

He shrugged. "I suppose I could. But I like your work; you're an artist with
memory, as I am an artist with food. You could, so I presume, eat your own
cooking without great harm... but wouldn't you rather eat mine? It is the
same with memory. Your chips are small in scope, perhaps, but somehow
complete, and they have. . .how shall I say this? Innocence is the right word,
perhaps." He paused. "Mirella is an innocent."

"Really?"

He saw my skepticism. "She is. Oh, she has rough edges, I admit this, but
she is young you see."

"I see."

"Not entirely," he said. "You are very young for a Dilvermooner; what
are you, seventy standard years? Eighty? I myself am old in every sense; I was
old when I came to this terrible little place. Four hundred years ago. But
Mirella is young in the most basic human sense; she was bom barely twenty-
three years ago. She won't see her twenty-fourth birthday."

I examined the emotions that swam through my head, which was aching
a little with fatigue. I felt a natural compassion for Odorini, tinged with a

THE SPINE DIVERS

149

slight degree of suspicion. Was he only a doting father, nothing more? That
he knew of me was in itself an extravagant coincidence, given the size of the
universe and the depth of my obscurity. On the other hand, I had chosen his
restaurant from an old guide book — a true coincidence, which probably
could not have been pre-arranged.

What of my feelings regarding the village, the divers, the caverns, and the
business that went on down there? My primary reaction was a sort of shame.
My own fears felt less important to me than before, in comparison to the
terrors that boiled beneath our feet.

Still, the whole thing seemed slightly unreal to me. I accepted that for
Odorini tragedy was imminent. . .his daughter was clearly a willing partici-
pant in the morbid business below. She showed the dark luster of the doomed.
She was pursuing her pointless end without any sign of healthy doubt. It was
a very unhappy situation. But I found something terribly false in the theatrical
settings, the contrived rituals, the vainglorious rhetoric — it distracted me,
it made me think that the onrushing tragedy was unnecessary. A futile
meaningless twitch of fate... not at all the stuff of good drama.

"Well," I said finally. "I would do what I could, but she doesn't seem to
like me."

He waved his hands, an airy gesture of dismissal. "She knows nothing of
you. Also, she is impetuous. Volatile. But fair, very fair. She will surely give
you another chance to know her, if you will ask."

"I'll ask, if the opportunity arises."

"I am content," he said, with an invincible sincerity. It occurred to me
that he might be a magnificent liar, or else an actor of extraordinary gifts. No,
I told myself, Odorini was only the proprietor of a small restaurant. To
imagine anything else was baseless paranoia.

We finished our wine, and I rose to go. "Perhaps," I said. "Perhaps she
would allow me to fit a recorder to her. For her next hunt, for her next ride
with the tide."

His eyes grew large with what seemed to be dismay. "Oh, no. You
mustn't think of such a thing."

"It seems the central aspect of her life."

For the first time he showed a real and unmistakable anger. "That's a
shallow thing to say, and false. She swims through a boiling night, pursuing
monsters... this is the thing closest to the true heart of my Mirella? A little

150

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

girl who danced in the sunlight, who brought treasures to her father every
day... flowers, seashells, bits of driftwood? Whose eyes were full of life's
brightest delight? Who had the sweetest laugh I've ever in my long life heard?
No, no, it's nothing but the foolishness of youth, that's all. But it's a
foolishness she has no time to outgrow. Why would I want to remember her
in the darkness?" There were tears in his eyes again, tears of rage or perhaps
helplessness. He sank back slowly, took a deep breath.

"Besides, " he said, in an abmptly careless voice. "You'd be breakingguild
law — a capital offense. If you put a bug on her and she swims. ..." He shook
his head somberly. "When the divers catch you, they'll skin you and leave you
for the crabs. Or if they happen to be in a merciful mood, they'll just lash you
to a rock and let the tide kill you."

I slept in my room until noon, and thereafter passed two days in
unprofitable musing. I wandered the village, rubbed elbows with the tourists,
took my meals at the Ripper Room.

I saw nothing of Odorini. When I asked after him, the staff at the
restaurant gave no explanation for his absence, beyond bemused shrugs and
professional smiles. I wondered where he lived, and how he amused himself
away from the kitchen and the cash register.

But I thought many more times of his beautiful daughter Mirella. I
remembered her long smooth swimmer's legs, her glossy mouth. The first
night, lonely in my room, I considered knocking on all the doors in the hall,
until I found her. Then I thought of going out to find someone else. In the end
I spent the night alone, dreaming fitfully of darkness and turbulent
waters... sometimes Odorini's clever old face floated through my dreams.

The next night I came home a little drunk, to find Mirella lying asleep
on my bed. She wore her barbarian costume. Beside the bed was a bowl of
whelks, cooked in an aromatic broth.

I stood over her for a minute, wobbly from drink and surprise. She slept
like a child, without any of the guarded quality most adults display even in
their sleep. Her mouth was open a little, and she sighed as she breathed. Sooty
eyelashes flickered against her cheek; did she dream? I could for just an
instant see the daughter Odorini mourned.

I sat down in the high-backed chair, making a small sound, and she woke.
She didn't seem at all startled, she simply opened her eyes and looked at me.

THE SPINE DIVERS

151

"So the carouser returns early," she said, in the tone of a resumed conversation.

I signaled the exterior camera to move back, so that it recorded a view
over my shoulder, looking down at the half-clothed woman in my bed. I
glanced at my monitor to verify the framing; it was excellent.

"Very odd," she said. "What is it like... to live always in the camera?"

"I'm used to it," I said.

"I suppose you can get used to anything."

I shrugged. I didn't know why I was so reluctant to be civil. Perhaps I was
still angry; no one likes to be called a coward, especially when it's true.

She sighed and sat up. "Well, my father sends you some of his favorite
food." She lifted the bowl. "Will you try one?"

"I guess so," I said, a little dubiously. "The true adventurer is rarely
intimidated by strange food."

She smiled crookedly — perhaps the result of the injury that scarred her
jaw. "Perhaps you'll be disappointed; this is not so adventurous a dish."

The flavor was rich and savory, with a hint of smoke, a tingle of hot
pepper. "It's very good," I said.

"The best ones come from the tidal caverns. I try to bring a few back for
Odorini, whenever I don't kill."

She's still bringing gifts to her father, I thought, and somehow Odorini's
forever-lost little girl came to life for me. Her tragedy seemed a bit more real,
a bit more personal. We finished the dish in silence.

When we were done, she leaned back against the bed's iron headboard.
Her naked legs seemed to reach most of the way to the foot of the bed. "You
seem much less fearful tonight. Would you like to talk, now?"

No, I thought, I would like to do the other thing you suggested when first
we met. But I nodded.

"Ask me what you like," she said. "I'll be more patient, this time."

"Why would that be?"

She smiled. "I'm calmer. Tomorrow night I swim the tide again. I've been
a rockhopper for much too long. . .but I can wait a night and a day. And Odorini
says you'll distract me."

"I'll do my best to be distracting," I said, attempting a gallantry. But she
seemed not to notice.

"So, how may I satisfy your curiosity?" She spoke in a relaxed voice,
without mockery.

152

FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION

I considered. What did I want to know? Ordinarily she'd be an excellent
source of information — beautiful, exotic, vivid. But the situation wasn't
ideal. . .usually I liked to happen upon my characters in colorful bars or other
public places, so as to stimulate the sort of chance encounter that any of my
fans might expect to have while traveling. This meeting was somehow
tainted by a sense of contrivance. Unless, of course, I was actually trying to
make a different kind of recording, unless I was actually going to deal with
Odorini and his daughter as central elements. This might then work to my
advantage.

"Would you be willing to wear a recorder while we talk?" I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. "Aren't you afraid to see yourself as I see you?"
She was clearly no fool, for all she'd chosen a foolhardy career.

"No, I'm used to that sort of thing," I said, not very truthfully. "And
perhaps you'll be kind."

She laughed. "Don't count on it. Yes, all right. I'll do it. Odorini will be
grateful."

She sat motionless in the high-backed chair while I worked the leads up
under her soft black hair. She didn't wince when the tip patches bit into her
scalp. The transmitter, a capsule no larger than a grain of rice, lay just above
the nape of her neck, well-concealed.

When I was finished, I waited for her to return to the bed, but she pushed
me away and pointed to it. "You rest there for a while. It annoys me to have
you always arranging your camera so as to peek up my breechcloth."

I made a feeble protest; she waved it away. "Never mind. Ask your
questions."

I glanced at my forearm monitor; the framing was less felicitous now.
Sprawled on the bed, I seemed vulnerable and awkward, without any of the
grace she had displayed in the same position. She sat in the chair, leaning
forward. The overhead light cast harsh shadows over her face, made her body
seem too knotty with muscle. She had an almost brutal quality, which from
all I knew of her was a falseness. "Lean back a little," I said, and she did,
softening the shadows.

I adjusted the camera so that my head and shoulder bounded the image
on two sides. I drew a deep breath and switched over into her viewpoint.

I felt first a singing tension, almost sexual, and indeed lust was a
component, but it was only coincidentally directed at me, and tempered by

THE SPINE DIVERS

153

a vague expectation of disappointment. In that instant I saw that if I were to
ask her to join me on the bed, she would do so... but without any special
enthusiasm.

My pride stung, I switched out, and tried to control my expression.
Apparently I was unsuccessful.

"Sorry," she said, and shrugged. "It's me, not you. My mind is on other
matters."

"Doesn't matter," I muttered. "We'll talk of those other things."

"All right." She had remarkable poise for one so young.

"Why did you choose to become a diver?" I asked.

She smiled almost eagerly, and it came to me that she was happy to have
an audience. "What could be better? No, I'm serious. Who bums as bright as
the person who bums in the dark?"

I held back a laugh. "That has the sound of rhetoric, learned for occasions
like this."

"You can think so. But there are far more dramatic divers than Mirella.
You'd hear grander rhetoric from them."

"For example?"

"'We are white-hot forges, burning away life, while Death pumps the
bellows.'" She made a sour face.

"Pretty purple stuff. Who said that?"

"Roont, my usual lover. Actually that's one of his better lines."

"You're fortunate," I said, somewhat stiffly.

"Do you think so? " Her mouth quirked^nto a somewhat sardonic shape.

I hastened to change the subject. "How long have you been a diver?"

"For almost three years."

"And how long do you plan to continue?"

She shmgged. "Until I die." She seemed matter-of-fact, without any of
the bravado that usually accompanies such statements.

"When do you expect that to be?"

She shook her head and looked away. "Odorini thinks I'll die tomorrow.
Because of my recent injuries."

"Do you agree?"

"No. I still have reserves. I'll last a while longer. I may not kill so
frequently as I did in times past." She looked a bit ashamed, but determined.

I wished I hadn't asked. Looking at her, separate from all the gaudy self-

154

FANTASY Sl SCIENCE FICTION

memorializing ritual of the caverns, I felt my detachment melting away, I felt
some of the weight of Odorini's sorrow.

"Your father... I think he'll find it hard to live when you're gone."

"Now who's being dramatic?" she asked. "Odorini will survive. You
have no idea what he's already lived through. He's very old."

"Has he always been a restaurateur?" I asked, thinking to find a less
distressing subject.

"Oh, no," she said. She giggled, as if this were a completely ludicrous
idea. "He was a great magnate on Firenza, before he moved here. He's still
insanely wealthy; he could buy this whole planet on a whim."

Firenza ? A strange thought came to me. My new publisher was chartered
out of Firenza. Was there a connection?

She went on; apparently she hadn't noticed the sound of gears grinding
in my head. "It's to his credit, really, that he doesn't just have me taken up
and carried off to the nearest soul laundry for a new personality."

"Yes, I suppose so...." I muttered, still bemused.

"He's sentimental," she said. "And not attached to physical objects;
with a new personality the old Mirella would be as dead to him as if a ripper
had cut her into fishbait. Even if she looked the same."

"Oh," I said. I tried to put aside my suspicions. Would Mrella know
anything about her father's schemes? If she did, would she tell me? Pointless
to wonder. "Well then, tell me about the drug."

"What's to tell? They make it from the fish and sell it for enough money
to make life easy." She wore a look of mild distaste.

"Do you use the drug when you dive?"

She jumped up, her distaste flashing into anger. "What a dreadful idea,"
she said, walking back and forth, looking as if she might bolt out the door at
any moment.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Maybe I was misinformed. I thought that many of
the divers used the drug."

Her eyes flashed, her nostrils flared, and her lips drew back over strong
white teeth. "Have you seen Loomp's collection of elderly divers? Those are
the users. One day they grew too fearful to swim the tide, and took the dmg.
They never kill again. They never feel the glory again, only the shame. But
since they don't fear the shame, they keep on diving and not killing, until at
last the tide wizards take away their right to dive. Then they move offplanet.

THE SPINE DIVERS

155

or become mercenaries or tour guides. Finally they sit on Loomp's porch,
without fear."

"I really don't understand...." I said.

"Clearly!" But she was calming a little; my bewilderment must have
seemed genuine. "The fear is necessary,- it drives out rational thought;
without that freeing fear, who would try to kill a ripper? Only a mad
person. . .and the mad divers rarely live long enough to acquire skill."

"I suppose I see what you mean, a little," I said.

She looked at me, her eyes still fierce. "My father was right; you're an
innocent. I know you're afraid. Tell me: have you ever taken the drug?"

"No."

She smiled and pulled away her breechcloth. She knelt over me,
beautiful and naked, frightening and strange. "Then I'll give you what I can,
if you still want it."

I N THE HOURS that followed, I was always aware that
the recorders were running, my greedy pleasure somehow
increased by the thought that I would never forget the
sensations of that night — that I would always be able to
recall it with all the intensity that the memory deserved. When finally a
glowing exhaustion came over me, I fell asleep without a care, pressed against
her.

I woke at dawn and reached for her, to discover that she was gone.
Anxiety stabbed through me. I had not removed Mirella's recorder. My
stomach clenched and sweat slicked my body, even in the early-morning
coolness. But my near-panic passed quickly; I told myself that I would soon
find her and set matters right.

I lay in bed for a while, thinking about the night, and I had the impulse
to rerun Mirella's track, to see if her passion had been as genuine as it seemed.
No, don't be an idiot, I thought. At least not yet.

I breakfasted in a nearby cafe, so as to avoid the Ripper Room and the
possibility of meeting Odorini. All indications were that he was an uncon-
ventional parent, one who might be tolerant of the night's events, or even
pleased by them... but why risk unpleasantness?

When I returned to the house, Tsaldo Loomp was sweeping his terrace,
and I went up to him eagerly. "Hello," I said.

156

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

"Hello, Citizen Mastine," he answered cautiously.

"Can you tell me, Citizen Loomp. . .which room is Mirella's? The diver? "

His face took on an opaque quality. "Mirella? What makes you think she
lives here?"

I began to panic, a little. "I saw her in the hall the day I arrived. I
assumed...."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. Perhaps she was visiting one of the old
divers. She lives below, in the caverns, like most of her kind."

I turned and set out for the Ripper Room, almost running. Odorini was
gone, and the staff was unwilling or unable to contact him, no matter how I
pleaded. I went to the Tourist Bureau, looking for another guide to the
caverns. The woman behind the counter asked what I expected to see during
the daytime.

"The divers. Or rather, one particular diver."

She shook her head tolerantly. "Impossible, sir. They rest now for the
night, and we're not permitted to disturb them for any reason. Tonight is a
Hunting Tide, didn't you know?"

"What... what if it's an emergency?"

She became uneasy. "I suppose you could talk to Tide Wizard Danolt, if
it's really desperate. I warn you, however, he's a harsh man."

I went back to my room, trying to regain a degree of calm. The
transmitter was a sophisticated device. In all likelihood, the barbarians in the
caverns lacked the technology to detect its frequencies, and surely no one
would actually see it. For all I knew I'd already committed a capital crime by
allowing Mirella to take the transmitter below. Perhaps it would be safest to
wait.

Night came to the Spine. I watched it darken the village, sitting on my
balcony with a warm jug of wine and a head full of cold misgivings. I never
really intended to watch Mirella's dive — though of course my recorders were
picking up her signal. But finally I went in and set up the big monitor and put
on the playback harness, thinking: why not?

She stood on the cliff face, looking down into the waves bursting against
the stone. In one hand she held a swag of lights, the silvery globes hanging
from cords. In the other she held her harpoon launcher. The Stormbringer Sea
rolled in massively, great tumbling mountains of black water. The waves

THE SPINE DIVERS

157

never broke into surf; the cliff was too vertical to trip them. They were
hammers wielded by gods, and the cliff shuddered under the impacts.

She glanced to each side. Dozens of other divers, dimly visible in the
moonless night, waited on the cliff.

I could feel her fear; it made her shake and filled her limbs with weakness.
But rising over the fear was an exultation that made her weightless. She
almost believed she could rise from the cliff and fly swooping out over the
ocean, and so did I.

She turned on her breather and bit down on the mouthpiece. She pulled
down her mask, she shut her eyes and swung her arm in a sweeping arc,
releasing her lights. She looked down, judged her moment, and sprang out
into space.

As she fell, she thought: so much light fills the night, here above the
water. The impact came, a moment of stunned transition, then her jets drove
her deep, down into the furious darkness.

I began to understand why the divers used such extravagant language. I
could not turn away, even for an instant.

Her lights followed her down the cliff face, each able to penetrate the
murk for only a few meters, so that she saw the stone racing past in flickering
instants. The lights swirled around her in close formation, and I realized she
was somehow directing their movements.

The tide swiftly carried her into a greater darkness, and now she began
to move horizontally, her jets pushing her faster than the tide. There was a
great deal of turbulence at the tidal cavern's opening; she was flung about like
a doll, unable for the moment to resist the tide or direct her movement. Then
the cunent stabilized and she regained a fragile control.

I lost myself in Mirella's moment, my world narrowed to hers, the
maelstrom of water and stone and the glimpses of other creatures hurtling
past. Words could never convey what it was like.

In some almost supernatural way she detected the presence of a ripper.
She sent her lights questing after it, like hounds, keeping only a pair to
illuminate her own way. In the pursuit she several times bounced off the
stone, bruising, lacerating impacts that would have incapacitated me, but she
seemed not to notice the pain and shock. The fish fled the light's agony; she
followed relentlessly, her jets whining loud enough to be heard over the
rumble of the tide and the creak of the stone.

158

FANTASY SCIENCE FICTION

She cx)mered the fish in a side passage, out of the worst of the current,
where it had the advantage in maneuverahility. But the lights blinded and
confused the fish, always distracting it just as it lunged at her, so that it missed
her each time, until at last she fired her harpoon into it, a clean shot through
the gills. She dragged it out into the tide, and soon passed into a large area of
soft radiance, where the tide's velocity dropped.

She broke the surface of the Well to the cheers of her fellow divers, and
there was room in her heart for nothing but joy.

I pulled the harness away, covered with sweat, gasping for air. fust for a
moment, I believed that Odorini was wrong, that he had terribly underesti-
mated the quality of his daughter's life, however short it might be.

They came for me in the morning, and I wasn't even surprised.

Teeg was one of them; he wore the uniform of the cavern guards. He
locked my wrists behind my back with a steel bracelet bar, but he was careful
not to hurt me. "You, Michael Mastine, an offworlder, are charged with a
forbidden act." He spoke without rancor, and I even thought to detect a bit
of pity in his hard dark face.

"It was an accident," I said, but no one answered me.

They put me in a small modern cell, where I waited for a day.

Then they took^e to the cliff and tied me to the rock.

The sun is gone now and the waves send spray high up the cliff. The stone
streams with cold water. I'm soaked and shivering. Soon, I suppose, the waves
will break over me. I will hold my breath between each wave, waiting for the
feel of air on my face so that I can take one more gasp. What will I feel when
the air no longer reaches me, when I understand I've taken my last breath? I
am paralyzed with raging shrieking fear; there's no room for anything else in
my head.

I heard a rattle beside me and twisted my head, shocked by incredulous
hope.

"I can't let you go," Mirella whispered. "They're watching." She wore
her diving gear.

"Please," I said, "please."

"Hush," she said, and touched her hand gently to my mouth. "It does no

THE SPINE DIVERS

159

good. They're hard folk, the divers; they have their rules... at least for
everyone else in the universe." But she took out a little knife and cut the
filaments that held my upper body, so that at least I could sit up.

Spray choked me and I coughed, unable to say anything.

She held out a capsule. "The drug, " she said. "You can save yourself from
the fear."

I looked at her. "Show me another way. Can't you?"

Her pale eyes were the only thing I could see. "But you're so afraid," she

said.

"I'm still alive," I told her, for some reason.

She regarded me silently, then began to unbuckle her breather harness.
"Will you swim the tide?" she asked.

I thought of the terrible sea below, the black velocity of the trip through
the tidal caves. For a moment, the climbing tide seemed an almost pleasant
alternative, a death just below the twilight sea's surface, still full of light. "I'm
afraid to," I said.

"Yes, of course you are. . .but will you dive? If you live, they'll let you go.
You'll be a diver of sorts, immune to all the laws. And you might live; it's not
impossible. I'll set the lights to globe you automatically; you won't have to
control them. The tide rose too early tonight to bring the rippers into the
Spine, so don't worry about them. There are other dangerous creatures, but
stay away from the stone and they'll miss you." As she spoke she fitted the
harness to me, loosening the straps here, tightening them there. "The jets
react to your body language; keep your head up and your eyes open and you'll
be able to see the stone in time to dodge."

She slashed my remaining bonds. She helped me to stand, she rubbed my
muscles until feeling began to return. I steadied myself against her shoulder.
She was warm.

"You must go soon," she said. "Once the tide reaches you, you'll be
ground to bits against the cliff. You have to jump out as far as you can and then
drive deep. Get into the first cavern you come to; don't tempt the sea
monsters. Stay alive until you see the light of the Well."

She held up the capsule again. "Do you want it?"

"No," I said. "I want to live. I need the fear."

She laughed and threw it away. "Good," she said. She kissed me, a
quick rough kiss that bruised. "Leam fast, then," she said, and led me to
the brink.

160 ♦

FANTASY &. SCIENCE FICTION

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Coming Attractions

A ecause of our science fictional bent, we look to the
future with anticipation. And there is much to
\ anticipate in our July issue.

In the 1960s, Roger Zelazny published his award-
winning, ground-breaking stories in f e95F. He returns to these pages
for the first time in years with a wonderful science fiction story, "The
Three Descents of Jeremy Baker." We believe it was worth the wait.

Another award-winner, Pat Murphy, provides the fantasy story for
the issue. "Points of Departure" follows the story of Jan who hears
wolves howling during the night of the blackout in Manhattan. Not
human wolves either, but the real kind, the kind a person finds in the
wilderness, not on the streets of America's most famous city.

Almost every story R. Garcia y Robertson has published in Fe9SP
has been a cover story. "Gone to Glory" is no exception. This is a tale
of terraforming and colonization. The story opens with a man named
Defoe sitting in the Sad Cafe, drinking gin slings and contemplating
the nude bathers in the low-g pool, when he's called to save a team on
Glory. And things get strange from there.

Barclay Shaw used science fictional techniques — at least they
would have been twenty years ago — to create the cover based on
"Gone to Glory." Using his computer and a few tricks of his own,
Barclay was able to create a 3-D image for the July cover. Just wait and
see.

Future issues bring even more excitement. Ian Watson, Michael
Coney, and Robert Reed will have cover stories. Nancy Springer,
Andrew Weiner, and John Morressy will return with some of their best
fiction. Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, and James Patrick Kelly
collaborate on one of the strongest political science fiction stories
we've read in a long time. Note that prices will be going up with the
July issue. The bind-in card in this issue is your last chance to enter
or extend a subscription at the old prices. So use it today!

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